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NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 




Alexandra Falls on the Hay River in late afternoon 



NEW RIVERS OF 
THE NORTH 



THE YARN OF TWO 
AMATEUR EXPLORERS 

BY 

HULBERT FOOTNER 

») 

WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY AUVILLB EAGER AND THE AUTHOR 

The Head-waters of the Fraser: 

The Peace River: 

The Hay River: 

Alexandra Falls: 




NEW YORK 

OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY 

MCMXII 






CopyniQHr, 1912, By 
OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY. 



All rights reserved. 



©CLA328674 



To 

A. E. 

" The Intrepid partner of many voyages Into 
trackless wilds." 

Vide the Edmonton Journal, 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VAGt 

I. The Start 13 

II. On the Tote Road .... 24 

III. Our Outfit 43 

IV. The Christening of the Blun- 

derbuss 60 

V. Old Lady Fraser y^ 

VI. The Lilliput River .... 85 

VII. The Sapphire Chain .... 97 

VIII. The Mountain of Gold . . . no 

IX. The Big Canyon 121 

X. A Peaceful Interlude . . . 133 

XL The Majesty of the Peace.. . 147 

XII. The Blunderbuss on Horseback 160 

XIII. The Unexplored River . . . 172 

XIV, The Grand Goal of Our Labors 185 
XV. Homeward Bound .... 203 

XVI. Traveling in Company . . . 223 

XVII. On Our Own Again .... 241 
XVIII. The Little River and the Big 

River 256 

XIX. The Last Stage 269 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Alexandra Falls on the Hay River in late after- 
noon Frontispiece 1/ 

FACING PAGE 

Mr. Footner's journey began and ended at Edmon- 
ton (map) 12'/ 

Claude and his bulls 32 1^ 

The down bridge over Fiddle Creek 32 ^^ 

For ten minutes he left the helpless beasts standing 

in the icy water 33 u 

Pop Hopper locked in the affectionate embrace of a 

muskeg ^^ ^ 

Mount Robson — From the level of the Grand Forks 

River 48 ^ 

A mass of gray rock, fantastically cleft and terraced 

and piled 49 ^ 

A row of log shacks thatched with canvas ... 49 v 
The greater part of the way the terrible Fraser was a 

very lamb in its behavior 64 / 

A surveyor, his assistant, and three Indians ... 65 v 
Entrance to the second canyon of the Fraser ... 65 V 
Their greatest treasure in the world was the phono- 
graph ............ 65 \/ 

Once around that point of rock nothing could turn 

a boat back 80"^ 

The drift pile at the mouth of the second canyon . 80 v 
Ourselves in the Blunderbuss — the surveyor's picture 81 ^z 

The start at Summit Lake ^i^ 

Surely there never was so little a stream that served as 

a highway of commerce 84 ^ 

Fort MacLeod with its little white store and the in- 
variable flag pole . 851/ 

9 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Like the Fraser in miniature with its rapids, its sharp . 

bends, its densely wooded banks 85 '^ 

We rigged the Blunderbuss with a poplar pole and a 

tarpaulin 92 

A row of log shacks, crazily thatched with strips of bark 93 

The still, black pools . . . crowded with fish . . 93 

We met three Indians and a dog coming up stream . 96 '•^ 
A gaunt, raw looking stream continually eating under , 

its banks 96 '^ 

Cooking and eating amidst a waste of fine sand has 

its disadvantages 97/ 

No word description of the Finlay Rapids is necessary 

because it is faithfully represented in the picture 112 ' 
A strange, troubled sea of mountain peaks . . . like a 

fantastic papier mache decoration . . . . 113 ^ 
Mount Selwyn — The mountain of gold — from up the 

river 113 "^ 

We quenched our thirst with snow 116 >/ 

At our feet lay the Peace River, nearly a mile below 116^ 

Mount Selwyn from the down river side . . . 117 v 
We had no idea how she would behave on the end of a 

string H7>y 

The river roared down out of sight between the walls 

below 124^/ 

Breasting the current like a pair of battleships . . 125 «/ 

No boat could have lived long in those torn waters . 125 v 
Sitting on his bag of flour, paddle in hand and pipe in 

mouth, he made a unique figure 128 "^ 

1281/ 
1291/ 

129 y 
129 \/ 



Fort St. John in the late afternoon 

Beaver Indians near Fort St. John 

St. John Peace in his " winter " garb 

The Blunderbuss arranged for the night 

They are not really hills for the country is flat on top 

and it is a kind of gigantic trough that the river 

has dug for itself 144^ 

It is the steep, grassy hills in the late afternoon that 

remain as the most characteristic impression of . 

the Peace 145 

10 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Peace River swinging widely and superbly among 

the hills 145 "^ 

The most dignified figure was Benjamin Cardinal, 

ninety years old 148 

Father, mother, and three babies in a dugout with all 

their worldly goods 148 *^ 

On the way to the Hay River — An engaging, parklike 

country gay with wild asters and golden rod . 149 '^ 

The author and Mahtsonza on the Hay River . . 156^ 

Indians on the Hay River trail — Aleck on the right 156^ 

Our disreputable friend Le Couvert 157 1^ 

A Slavi brave I57^ 

The Hay River and the Serpent 160 v^ 

He brought in a rabbit while we were there . . . 161^ 

Tatateecha Cadetloon, the patriarch of the tribe . . 161 v^ 

Looking up one of the rapids in the Hay . . . . 1761/^ 

It opened up before us in successive, smooth reaches . 177 (/ 
The opposite wall rose out into a bold promontory 

around which the river swung 177 ^^ 

The entire river gathered itself and made a single 

plunge into deep water below 196 "^ 

As it descended it drew over its brown sheen a lovely, 

creamy fleece of foam I97»/ 

Our most complete picture of the cataract . . . 204 ^^■ 
We could have dangled our feet in the wildest of the 

torrent 205 ^ 

The second falls from below 205 1/* 

There below us lay another waterfall .... 208 ^ 

Looking up the secret stair 209 ^ 

The window on the secret stair 209 t/ 

Once a day we went ashore to chop wood . . . 224 v' 

All the children came down to bid her God-speed . 224 v 

The Messenger at Peace River Crossing .... 225 ^/ 

We had a huddled lunch in the wet snow . . . 225 ^ 

The game of bridge was a great resource . . . 256 y 

Along the ninety mile trail 256 ^ 

The ferry at Saw Ridge 257 / 

II 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Jack Slavin's outfit on Lesser Slave Lake . . . 25 7 v-^ 

The Blunderbuss after the storm 272 -y 

They couldn't sit down for fear of getting their Sun- 
day clothes wet 273 '■^' 

The last stage — Our observation car 273 v 



12 






PAKT OF 
WBSTehV CAIVADA 




sr^^'^'f^^r — 



Mr. Footner's journey began and ended at Edmonton. The arrows 
show the direction he was traveling. 



NEW RIVERS OF 
THE NORTH 

CHAPTER I 

THE START 

WHEN the North is mentioned it gener- 
ally evokes a picture in the hearer's 
mind of the bleak, barren lands, or of 
the desolate, flat shores of Hudson Bay. There is 
another North, the smiling parklike land adja- 
cent to the Rocky Mountains, that is warmed 
and refreshed by the moisture-laden winds from 
the Pacific. This is the country of our journey. 
The rivers are not really " new " of course, 
but almost the oldest things there are ; they have 
been pursuing their lovely courses since the im- 
memorial nightmare when the mountains were 
pushed up, and the sea retreated. Calling them 
" new " is merely man's conceited way of putting 
it. It is we white men who are new to the rivers. 
I am conscious of my unfitness to be the first to 
describe the new parts of them. It needs a geol- 
ogist, a botanist — and a poet to do them jus- 

13 



14 NEJV RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

tice. I can only offer to share the delight of 
two amateurs in descending streams of which 
no man could say what lay around the next bend. 
I would like to convey a sense of the pleasure 
one feels in beholding sights that have not been 
published to the world at large. No normal 
transfer of the country for value received, et 
cetera, could give us half the opulent sense of 
proprietorship in it that we now enjoy. 

Our plan was to start from the end of the 
Grand Trunk Pacific Railway west of Edmon- 
ton, and have our outfit transported by wagon or 
pack pony through the Yellowhead Pass along- 
side the railway construction. We could not 
find out for certain if a wagon road had been 
completed through the pass, and we therefore 
took a collapsible boat, that could be rolled up 
and packed on a horse's back. 

We expected to launch our craft In the head- 
waters of the Fraser River beyond the summit 
of the pass. For several hundred miles the Fra- 
ser flows in a northwesterly direction before mak- 
ing its great sweep to the south, and this was 
the portion of it that we meant to descend. At 
Giscomb Portage there is a six-mile carry over 
the height of land to Summit Lake, one of the 
sources of the Peace. We were then to descend 
its various tributaries in a northerly direction to 



THE START 15 

the forks of the great river Itself, and come back 
again through the mountains by the Peace River 
pass. 

After that the grand objective of the trip w^as 
to reach the Hay River, the longest river in 
North America, I believe, that remains unex- 
plored and unmapped. When I had been in the 
country five years before, I had heard vague 
stories of a great and beautiful cataract on the 
Hay River that only one or two white men had 
ever beheld, and I had dreamed of it o' nights 
ever since. 

The Hay River is said to rise in three small 
lakes near the foothills of the Rockies, about 
a hundred miles north of the Peace at Fort St. 
John. It flows, roughly speaking, parallel with 
the Peace, that is to say, in a northeasterly direc- 
tion, and empties into Great Slave Lake. It is 
probably six or seven hundred miles long. The 
stretch of country between the two river Is like- 
wise written down " unexplored " on the maps. 

This trip offered particular attractions. In 
the first place, by starting at a high altitude on 
the Fraser we were enabled to travel continu- 
ously down-stream for thirteen or fifteen hun- 
dred miles. And every day of it promised to 
be interesting. There was the magnificent Yel- 
lowhead pass with Robson Peak, the highest 



i6 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

known mountain in Canada, the turbulent Era- 
ser, and the little-known headwaters of the 
Peace. There was the Peace River pass, where 
the river forces its way through the main chain 
of the Rockies, including the famous Rocky- 
Mountain canyon, and the noble river itself for 
hundreds of miles beyond. Finally there was 
the chance of bringing home a river of our own, 
and one of the great water-falls of the continent 
for a grand prize. 

Though of course we were not by any means 
the pioneers of the entire route, which is a well- 
known one to the Indians and the traders, very 
little about it has ever been written, and our 
photographs are to a large extent the first of 
this country that have reached the outside world. 

We left civilization behind us at Edmonton, 
the last town in this part of the world. I need 
say very little about it — not that there is noth- 
ing to be said; indeed, at present Edmonton is 
one of the most interesting places in the coun- 
try; the romance of development is in the air, 
and no man can tell what the next day will bring 
forth. But this is a yarn of the woods and the 
waters, and it naturally begins where the town 
ends. 

In Edmonton they are very keenly interested 



THE START 17 

in the vast untouched country lying to the north 
and west of them; the future greatness of the 
town depends on its opening to settlement. They 
were therefore interested in our journey, and one 
of the newspapers gave us a long write-up 
couched in such glowing terms as to bring the 
blushes to our maiden cheeks. 

This story appeared on the morning that we 
set forth, and we read it on the train. It was 
written in a high-falutin', boastful vein that 
made us want to crawl under the car-seats, espe- 
cially my " intrepid partner," to whom the in- 
terview was ascribed. We expected that the 
story would precede us, queering us all along 
the line, but to our great relief no one seemed 
to take the slightest notice of it. I have chosen 
a quotation from it for the dedication to this 
book. 

The railroad ended officially at Edson, one 
hundred and thirty-five miles west of Edmon- 
ton. To the eye it was an unpromising town of 
the packing-box school of architecture erected in 
a sad wilderness of oozing clay. It was filled 
with the unnatural bustle of a temporary ter- 
minus, that bustle which passes, leaving a no less 
unnatural stagnation. At the moment Edson 
was enjoying its day; we were informed that 
lots on the boggy main street were held at five 



1 8 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

thousand dollars each, and transfers had actually 
been made at twenty-five hundred. To give 
an idea of our geographical position I will men- 
tion that Edson is about two hundred miler 
northwest of the famous Kicking-Horse pass, 
where the Canadian Pacific Railway traverses 
the Rockies ; say three hundred miles due north 
of the boundary of the State of Washington; or 
about four hundred miles north of the city of 
Spokane. 

From Edson we were permitted to ride sixty- 
two miles further west on a construction train. 
I use " permitted " advisedly, for the contrac- 
tors made it clear they considered they were do- 
ing us a favor in accepting our four cents a mile. 
For instance, the construction train waited negli- 
gently a quarter of a mile down the track at Ed- 
son, and we had to make four hasty, heartbreak- 
ing trips over the ties with our outfit on our 
backs, the train threatening to leave momenta- 
rily. We traveled at our own risk, of course, 
no slight one in a car rocking on the newly laid 
rails like a vessel in a cross sea ; and we were 
further advised that it was incumbent on us to 
look after our own baggage. Part of someone 
else's stufif was spilled out en route, and it was 
only owing to the energy of my partner, who 
pursued the baggage car down the track with 



THE START 19 

the box on his shoulder, that It was not left on 
the right of way. 

We rode on the uncompromising wooden seats 
of an emigrant car, and the train averaged ex- 
actly seven miles an hour for nine hours, but it 
was impossible to be bored. Never was there 
a more interesting carfull, pioneers for the most 
part with their faces turned toward the fron- 
tier, and radiating an atmosphere of hopefulness. 
We were entranced by the scraps of conversa- 
tion that reached our ears; how So-and-So had 
succeeded in establishing the old Indian trail to 
the headwaters of the Big Smoky; how some- 
body else had made a strike in the valley of the 
Grand Forks ; how it was rumored that five thou- 
sand dollars' worth of marten fur had been 
brought out of the Cassiar country. I remem- 
ber only one woman on the train, the wife of 
the storekeeper at Tete Jaune Cache, who had 
her baby with her, undoubtedly the youngest 
white man in the country. She had a drive of 
a hundred and twenty-five miles through the 
pass before her. 

We were reminded anew of the advantages 
of rough clothes as a passport on the road. 
Good clothes cut the wearer off from his fellows 
like a wall. The more fashionably clad, the 
more of an outcast he becomes. But let him put 



20 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

on a cheap, ragged habit and go into the streets, 
and delightful adventures crowd on him. He 
will then learn what human fellowship is. The 
world will take him to its heart, initiate him 
into its mysteries, and provide him with inex- 
haustible entertainment. 

We talked with a youthful sergeant of the 
mounted police, a splendid physical specimen 
with a capable air, and a steady eye that upheld 
the best traditions of the force. We admired 
his manner with the crowd, particularly toward 
the end of the day, when one or two passengers 
mysteriously became intoxicated. He got on 
smoothly with everybody, without descending 
from his own level — no easy task with these 
touchy pioneers. He must have led rather a 
lonely life, because the only times he could really 
relax were with his fellow-redcoats. When he 
met a comrade at one of the way-stations we 
would see the pair of them go apart, and laugh 
and joke with each other, as if they needed to let 
off steam. 

There was a comic opera tenderfoot on board. 
It seemed incredible in these days of free libra- 
ries for the circulation of popular literature that 
anyone could be so green. He was clad in a 
brand-new canvas " sporting " suit, topped off 
with a huge hunting knife, that he confided to us 



THE START 21 

was for cutting his ^' bully beef " wItK. We al- 
ways referred to him thereafter as " Bully Beef." 
He was anxious and anemic; he had worked In 
a bank for nine years, and was now on his way 
to carry the chain for a surveying party In the 
mountains. His innocence was pathetic; one 
could not help but foresee the rich, cruel fun in 
store for that gang of surveyors. 

The happiest man on the train was the little 
news-agent. He was driving a roaring trade In 
sandwiches at twenty cents each, not to speak of 
oranges, " pop," and tobacco at corresponding 
prices. The car was filled with his rollicking 
repartee, and the chink of the coin pouring In 
on him. Nature had intended him for a clown ; 
but no doubt he was doing better as a news- 
agent. He had not only the train to draw from, 
for at every camp along the line, some of the 
laborers swarmed aboard to examine his stock. 
Loud were the lamentations of the foreigners 
when his " snooze " gave out, " snooze " being 
the local familiarity for snuff. 

BIckerdike, or Mile 17, was the principal 
stop en route. Above the track stretched a 
row of log shacks calked with clay, and hang- 
ing out over the doors such rakish, home-made 
signs as: " Dad's Stopping-house "; " Short Or- 
der Resterant"; "Pool-room"; "The Old 



22 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

Man's Place," etc. Between the shacks and the 
train lounged a various and colorful crowd, 
every unit of which had character. It is the 
most striking feature of a new country that every 
man has a strong individuality — or affects one. 
Blanks are out of fashion. There were some 
ladies, too, at Bickerdike. Never will we forget 
the haughtiness of certain dames who, clad in 
sweaters reaching to the ground, and with innu- 
merable puffs in their back hair, came languidly 
down to the cars to inquire if there were any 
packages. 

Between stations the country for the most part 
showed the same dreary, scrubby waste, from 
which the timber had long ago been burned. 
This is not one of the famous agricultural dis- 
tricts of Alberta. Now and then a pretty lake 
relieved the monotony, and the occasional rivers 
were interesting, rushing down through the vast 
troughs they had cut for themselves in the clay. 
Toward the end of the afternoon the Rocky 
Mountains appeared off to the west, with Roche 
Miette, a splendid bold cliff marking the gate- 
way for which we were bound. 

At half-past ten in the gathering dusk we were 
put off at Mile 62. The day was June 26th. 
Why they wouldn't carry us three miles further 
to Hinton, where the stopping-houses were, is 



THE START 23 

another mystery clear only to the railway con- 
tractors. As it was we had to stage it at ruinous 
rates. We slept at the Mountain View Hotel, 
the last bed we were to have for many a day to 
come. 



CHAPTER ir 

ON THE TOTE ROAD 

NEXT morning we found that Hinton, or, 
as it was more generally called, Mile 65, 
was rapidly taking on the air of a deserted 
village. The construction trains were now haul- 
ing the contractors' freight through to Mile 88, 
consequently everyone was moving on. We had 
seen several such abandoned towns en route, one 
of which, Wolf Creek, extended for upwards of 
a mile beside the track. The population had 
fallen from hundreds of souls to three. The 
" tote road," I need hardly explain, is built by 
the contractors for the purpose of hauling sup- 
plies to the various camps along the line of con- 
struction. We learned that it had been com- 
pleted through the pass except for a ten-mile 
break at Moose Lake. 

At Mile 65 the only wagon ready to start west 
was drawn by a double team of oxen. We 
looked askance at the slavering, heavy-footed 

beasts, which promised anything but rapid 

24 



ON THE TOTE ROAD 25 

transit, but at least the driver was hitching 
them up, and there was nothing else in sight; it 
was a start. At ten o'clock we set our faces 
west on the tote road, snow-capped peaks beckon- 
ing us ahead. Our folding boat, and our grub 
outfit followed on top of the load. 

The driver's name was Everitt. He was a 
mild young man with rosy cheeks and large, lus- 
terless eyes like his oxen. We had not traveled 
far in his company before we discovered that an 
exclusive association with his slow beasts had 
sapped the springs of his energy. Men who 
spoke to us about him later would shake their 
heads and say: " Everitt, he used to be one of 
the smartest young fellers on the trail. But 
'pears he must have slipped a cog somewheres. 
He can't get through no more! " 

We could supply the explanation. Everitt 
was an impressionable youth, and he had taken 
the color of his " bulls." Like them he was slow 
almost to the point of paralysis, also timid and 
self-distrustful to a degree. Once stopped he 
required a goad to set him in motion again. 
We would see Everitt standing motionless for 
minutes at a time with a piece of harness 
in his hands, and his eyes fixed in a vacant stare. 
At such a moment all that he lacked to complete 
the resemblance was a cud to chew, 



■26 NEW 'RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

We traveled at about a mile and a half an 
hour, with frequent pauses to breathe the oxen — 
and Everitt. My partner and I walking ahead 
could stop for a swim, or an hour's fishing, or to 
climb a mountain without any danger of being 
left too far behind. Everitt had assured us he 
was in the habit of making fifteen or twenty 
miles a day, but we had not gone three before 
he sat down for a two-hour spell in a mosquito- 
ridden meadow. He made ten miles the first 
day, and he was greatly pleased with himself. 
Fortunately we were overtaken by a pedestrian 
philosopher called Jim Waters, who threw in 
his lot with us. He was an old acquaintance of 
Everitt's and his energy supplied a kind of goad. 

We camped within the confines of Jasper 
Park, one of the Canadian national reservations, 
pitching our tent in a magnificent grove of 
spruce trees. There we lay for two whole days. 
It rained, and Everitt insisted with tears in his 
voice, that he would never, never be able to get 
his load through the four miles of timber that 
lay beyond. We pointed out that the more it 
rained, the worse the road would become, but 
without avail. On the third morning word was 
brought along the road that the mounted police 
were coming, and that they were " frisking " 
every load they overtook. I do not know if 



ON THE TOTE ROAD 27 

Everltt carried any contraband ; but any rate he 
started. 

It was in truth a very bad piece of road that 
followed, but nothing to what we had expected 
from Everitt's harrowing forecast. We got 
through without capsizing. It was amusing to 
hear the mild young driver bellowing to his 
steeds in an awful voice that issued from his 
boots. 

Beyond the timber, the hills that hemmed us 
in became mountains. Roche Miette was now 
rearing its crude, bold steeple of rock close 
ahead. The first mountain on our left had no 
name that we could discover, and we christened 
it Mount Primus. We climbed it while our 
cavalcade crawled up the valley. The summit 
was perhaps twenty-five hundred feet above the 
river. We endured frequent cold squalls of 
rain, and hordes of mosquitoes for the sake of 
the view. The Athabasca issued from between 
the great mountains on our left in innumerable 
channels among spruce-clad islands. At our 
feet it spread out in a vast muddy lake. The 
effects of rain and mist among the heights were 
magnificent. We came down on the run in the 
track of a mountain goat, who considerately 
pointed out the easiest way, but the goat himself 
escaped our view. 



28 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

The next day we came to an obstruction that 
almost broke Everitt's heart all over again. The 
bridge over Fiddle Creek had been undermined 
by heavy rains, and there was no way to cross 
but by fording. Everitt swore he would never 
be able to do it, and had it not been for Jim 
Waters I have no doubt he would be there yet. 
We ourselves crawled across the broken bridge 
through a roaring cataract, at the imminent dan- 
ger of being carried down. We desired to get 
pictures of the oxen fording. I lost my best 
pipe. 

Everitt finally made a start, but the oxen went 
in up to their bellies, and he was seized with 
panic. For perhaps ten minutes he kept the 
hapless creatures standing there in the icy, rush- 
ing water while he debated what to do. Finally 
he unhitched them, and attaching them to the 
back of the wagon, pulled it back from the 
water's edge. 

Then there was a long wait. From our side 
of the stream we could see Jim Waters vainly 
expostulating. Finally a half-breed driver 
came along with a load, and without so much 
as a glance at the torrent, nonchalantly drove 
through. Everitt followed in his wake. To 
hear him crow at the other side one would have 
thought he had dared the Rubicon unaided. 



ON THE TOTE ROAD 29 

Unfortunately the pictures we took of these 
operations are a trifle over-exposed. We made 
heavy allowances for the dazzling brilliance of 
the Alberta sunshine, but not sufficient, it ap- 
pears. 

At Mile 88 we decided we had had enough of 
Everitt and his bulls. In five days we had made 
twenty-three miles. At any rate Everitt was go- 
ing but twenty miles farther, and Mile 88 offered 
the best chance of engaging a through passage. 
Unluckily the railroad bridge over Fiddle 
Creek was likewise down, and the freighters 
were standing about idle. For five more days 
we waited in camp. It was a comfortable camp 
in a grove of trees beside the Athabasca, with 
Roche Miette towering over our shoulder. 
They were delightful days of loafing, and quaf- 
fing deep of the champagne of the mountain tops, 
but we chafed at the delay. 

Every day one of us walked into the " cache," 
as they call any place where goods are stored, 
for news of the freighters. One friend, Jim 
Waters, had his team there. On the way was 
a camp of Indians and breeds, a sadly mixed 
lot, the first natives we had seen on the journey. 
There was nothing of story-book Indian about 
them. Imagine the noble red-man with a 
patent washing machine at the door of his tent 



20 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

and a universal bread-mixer inside! They did 
not even live in tepees, but in dirty wall-tents 
with a rusty stove-pipe sticking out of one end. 
Nevertheless, dirty and degenerate as they were, 
the rags of romance still clung to them. They 
are so mysterious! They keep themselves to 
themselves and it is impossible for a white man 
to tell what is going on behind their smooth, 
dark, sullen faces. 

On the sixth day my partner returned to in- 
form me with a rather dubious joy that he had 
found a freighter going up light, who would 
carry our stufif to the summit of the pass. When 
the wagon presently hove in view, I understood 
his doubts. I never saw a more criminal-look- 
ing outfit. The driver was a little, one-armed 
man with a wicked, merry eye, and clad in de- 
plorable rags. As he said himself: he "hadn't 
enough clothes to flag a freight with." His com- 
panion was a hulking young Irishman with an 
alcoholic flush, and a furtive glance, but one 
cannot be too particular on the trail; we cast in 
our lot with them. 

We soon found that we were in the company 
of an honest enough pair. They were desper- 
ately hard up. They had scarcely any food, 
and their cooking outfit was limited to a bat- 
tered lard pail for boiling their tea, and an axle- 



ON THE TOTE ROAD 311 

grease tin to drink it from. Yet the team that 
" Wingy " drove so cleverly was one of the best 
on the tote road, and we heard of other horses 
that he owned. We gathered later that he had 
been cleaned out in a poker game down the 
line. 

Wingy was an Irishman too, a witty one, and 
madly improvident. He had an infinite com- 
mand of picturesque metaphor, and I am sorry 
that owing to reasons of propriety I may not 
quote him more. He let fall many hints of 
strange adventures on the seven seas. As for 
the hulking Pat, he proved to be the soul of 
simplicity and good-nature. Wingy drew him 
out endlessly for our benefit. 

We now made good time, and would have 
done better still had we not fallen in with a 
blacksmith emigrating westward with all his 
worldly goods. His horses were played out, 
and Wingy helped him up the hills, and even 
changed teams with him, when his own beasts 
could pull no farther. Wingy did all this largely 
out of pure good will (he had never seen the 
man before) but partly, we guessed, out of re- 
spect for the blacksmith's well-furnished grub- 
box. At any rate Wingy and Pat feasted upon 
tinned salmon and jam at every meal. Two 
passengers rode on top of the blacksmith's load ; 



32 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

a middle-aged man nursing a broken leg, and 
his daughter, a pretty little girl who, poor child, 
had had no chance to take off her clothes or brush 
her hair since leaving Edmonton. We pitied 
them, frightfully jolted and thrown about as 
they were on their insecure perch. 

Another delay was caused by Pop Hopper. 
Pop Hopper was the Jonah of the tote road. 
The other freighters hated to get behind him, 
knowing if they did they would be obliged to 
stop and help him out of all his troubles. He 
was a blustering old infant who, in the parlance 
of the road, " had money," and only freighted 
for the fun of it. Certainly he could not have 
made anything. Wingy opined that Pop Hop- 
per " would make better time if he let one of the 
horses drive, and put his own neck in the collar." 

We were unlucky enough to fall behind him 
one morning. We occupied ourselves picking 
up pails of jam, tins of corn, and so on, that had 
spilled off his load. After lunch we came upon 
him with his hind wheels locked to the hubs in 
the affectionate embrace of a muskeg. It was 
his custom when anything like this befell him to 
sit down and have a lunch while waiting for 
someone to come along. By the time we arrived 
he had already collected quite a crowd from the 
nearest construction camp. He was in his ele- 







Claude and his Bulls 




Tlie down biid^c over Fiddle Creek 




For ten minutes he left the helpless beasts standing in the icy water' 




Pop Hopper locked in the affectionate embrace of a muskeg 



ON THE TOTE ROAD 33 

ment, ordering his volunteer helpers about like 
the foreman of a gang of navvies. 

We pitched in too, tearing up the corduroy of 
a neighboring bridge, and cheerfully miring our- 
selves to the hips in the endeavor to " prize " her 
up. Pop Hopper stood by yelling and cursing 
at us in his own way. At one time we had five 
horses and four mules straining at the chains, but 
all to no avail ; she stuck. Finally we had to un- 
load, and then we discovered that Pop Hopper 
had his own way of loading too. He was taking 
a load of " fancy stuff " to one of the stores at the 
summit. He had carefully put in all the lighter 
things first, such as boxes of macaroni, crates of 
cocoanuts, oranges, onions and eggs. On this he 
had piled bags of sugar, bales of hay, and great 
chests of tea. Consequently we uncovered a hor- 
rid scramble in the bottom of the wagon box; 
long strings of yellow egg ceaselessly dripped 
through the cracks. 

We finally put him on his way, taking care, 
however, to gain the road ahead of him. The 
next day we heard the sequel. A few miles be- 
yond where we left him he drove off the side of a 
steep bank, and his wagon capsized, "with all 
four wheels turning in the air." Our informant 
added that he had come across Pop Hopper after 
the accident comfortably lunching under a tree. 



34 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

The whole landscape was littered with fancy gro- 
ceries, and the old man was eating pickles out 
of a bucket that had burst against a stump be- 
side him. 

As soon as we left Mile 88 we entered among 
the real mountains, gigantic, naked sweeps of 
rock that took our breath away afresh every 
time we lifted our eyes. The pass is an easy one, 
and for the most part the valley was flat all the 
way through. Soon we were winding around 
the bases of the snow-capped mountains. Of 
all the works of nature surely no one could ever 
come to take snowy peaks for granted. To see 
them in the sunlight, flung up against an ocean 
of blue, is at once the most beautiful and the most 
disquieting sight of earth. For an entire day 
Pyramid Mountain dazzled and delighted our 
eyes with its regular snowy plains. 

Meanwhile the tote road was as animated as 
a city street. All day the freighters came and 
went, and this is not to speak of other travelers, 
mounted or in wagons, and a small army afoot. 
It is a saying up there that there are always three 
construction gangs in the country, one coming, 
one going, and one at work on the grade. In 
addition, the tote road had this year for the first 
made the mountains accessible for prospecting, 
and we were continually meeting gold-hunters, 



ON THE TOTE ROAD 35 

those harmless madmen with their little ham- 
mers. 

We walked into the camp at the Summit one 
Monday morning, Wingy and the blacksmith 
following soon after. Pat had mysteriously dis- 
appeared the day before. Wingy, with his 
wicked smile said we would find him at the Sum- 
mit, but he was not there, nor did we ever learn 
what had become of him. I desire to give a 
plain unvarnished account of what we saw in this 
place. At first it seemed to us no different from 
the other camps we had passed through, but little 
by little the difference became apparent, and in 
the end we found ourselves looking on a little 
dazed, and scarcely comprehending what was 
happening. 

I should explain that under the Canadian 
laws no liquor may be kept or sold along the 
line of construction of a railroad. East of the 
Summit the law was pretty well enforced by the 
mounted police. There were some " boot-leg- 
gers," but no " speak-easies." The province of 
British Columbia, however, administers its own 
internal affairs much the same as one of the 
sovereign states across the border. Conse- 
quently the mounted police had no jurisdiction, 
and the camp at the Summit had sprung up in 
their faces, not more than a hundred yards from 



36 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

the border of Alberta. It is true, protection by 
the province of British Columbia had been 
promised the law-abiding element, but the police 
had not materialized. I hope they are there by 
this time. 

The camp consisted of perhaps fifteen log 
shacks roofed with canvas. There were three 
or four general stores, a Japanese restaurant, 
and four drinking places, the latter run without 
the slightest pretence of concealment. Before 
we realized what kind of a place we had struck, 
we were rash enough to accede to Wingy's re- 
quest of five dollars on account, to enable him 
to buy feed for his horses. That explains our 
delay here. 

The first thing that struck us as out of the com- 
mon was the sight of several inanimate bodies 
sprawled in the mud of the trail. No one paid 
any attention. " Let 'em sleep it off," was the 
general sentiment. The instrument of havoc 
was " squirrel whiskey " at two bits a drink. 
One cynical traveler informed us that it was 
made out of gasolene: " two shots and you'll ex- 
plode," said he. 

Passing a little log shack we saw in the gloom 
within, a swollen figure like a spider sitting on 
a stump at the head of a rough table, idly shuf- 
fling a pack of cards with a wary eye on the open 



ON THE TOTE ROAD 37 

door. He had the hardest face I have ever seen, 
a compound of unmitigated sensuality and cun- 
ning. One would have thought the sight of it 
sufficient to warn an infant child to keep out of 
his den, but the next time we passed, each of 
the other three stumps around the table was oc- 
cupied, and the game in full swing. 

We were introduced to the mayor. This 
functionary we suspected had risen to his office 
by virtue of having the hardest head in the com- 
munity. He accepted drinks from all, and be- 
trayed no sign. His official duties so far as we 
observed consisted in ordering the bystanders to 
" roll them there corpses out of the trail so's 
the wagons kin pass." He also acted as a gen- 
eral safety deposit vault. A Swede lurched out 
of one of the bars, and collapsed on a bench out- 
side. The mayor appropriated his watch, and 
held it up. " You see, fellers, I have his watch," 
he said. " I'll keep it till becomes to. Lay him 
out there to one side so's he won't git stepped 



on." 



From bits of overheard conversation we 
learned that there had been what the newspapers 
call " a shooting affray " at the Summit the night 
before. An all-round bad man called " Baldy" 
on coming to town had given his roll to a lady 
to keep for him. On his demanding it back 



38 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

later, she claimed that he had drunk it up, where- 
upon Baldy proceeded to demolish her estab- 
lishment. She shot at him and wounded a 
friend, who had been carried off to the hospital 
at Mile ii6. This Baldy had a bad reputation 
in the country. They still tell the story of how 
he hitched his team to the corner of " Dirty 
Mag's " speak-easy and threatened to pull the 
whole thing over if she didn't come across with 
the drinks. 

Presently the redoubtable Baldy was pointed 
out to us, drinking squirrel whiskey in the Jap- 
anese restaurant. Anything less like the bad man 
hero of Western romance could not be imagined. 
He was obese, flabby, and unclean. His aspect 
was as unwholesome as a piece of over-ripe fruit 
preserved in wood alcohol. He lacked coat and 
hat; his shirt was torn, and his unhallowed bald 
pate was covered with abrasions. He had 
reached the crying stage of intoxication, and was 
hanging on men's necks, sobbing aloud, and pro- 
testing his honesty. Yet he was as active as a 
lynx; he seemed to be everywhere in the camp at 
once, and wherever he went followed trouble. 

I cannot undertake to describe seriatim all that 
we saw at the Summit. It remains in my mind 
like the phantasmagoria of a bad dream, nor is 
my partner's note-book any less incoherent. It 



ON THE TOTE ROAD 39 

was not until afterwards that we realized the 
significance of the happenings .there. I remem- 
ber with the rest of the crowd we continually 
moved up and down the trail from one saloon to 
another so as not to miss any of the " doings." 
We made the interesting discovery that all the 
drinking-places were bespattered with unmis- 
takable ugly, dark stains. We received many in- 
vitations to partake of squirrel whiskey, but see- 
ing the results before our eyes, we would as soon 
have drunk bichloride of mercury. 

In the lower saloon some wag persuaded 
Baldy to put on the gloves with one " Curly," 
who was a clever boxer. It was very funny to 
see the boozy old creature prancing about on his 
toes in the pugilistic style of 1880, while he in- 
vited the other to come on, and the cabin was 
filled with the Homeric laughter of the crowd. 
This was innocent enough, but afterwards in 
Baldy's absence, one known as " Frenchy," who 
already bore the marks of several recent en- 
counters on his face, made a disparaging remark, 
which Wingy, our little driver, took upon him- 
self to resent. 

One thing led to another, and presently Wingy 
leapt upon Frenchy, bore him to the floor, and 
proceeded to beat him up more thoroughly and 
expeditiously than I ever saw it done before. 



40 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

He held him down with the stump of his maimed 
arm, and punched him with the other. It was 
pure bravado on the part of Wingy; we guessed 
that he was doing it just to impress us. A good 
deal more of Frenchy's blood was spilled. When 
he threatened to lapse into unconsciousness his 
assailant was pulled ofif, minus a further portion 
of his ragged shirt. When Baldy came in and 
heard of the affair, he instantly bought him a 
new one. 

Some time after this the foreman of a con- 
struction gang near by came striding into camp 
in a towering passion. Brandishing a fist like 
a ham under Baldy's nose, he ordered him out of 
town. " This here shootin' has got to stop I " he 
stormed. " How kin I keep my men at work 
down there with the bullets whistlin' through the 
trees! " The upshot of the argument was that 
Baldy, tearfully protesting, was loaded on a 
democrat that was about to start westward, and 
deported. 

All this while at the other end of camp there 
was fighting going on among a crowd of Swedes. 
Squirrel whiskey had reduced the unfortunate 
creatures to a state of utter bestiality. They 
were men of enormous physical strength. They 
fought like animals, silently, blindly, heedless 
pf friend or foe. If there was no adversary 



ON THE TOTE ROAD 41 

within reach, in their madness they just as lief 
butted their heads with frightful force against 
the log walls. A crowd swayed outside the door 
of the saloon, and we only had a brief glimpse 
when it parted, of what was going on within. 
The onlookers forebore to interfere, unless two 
men picked on one. 

One man thus rescued fell limply across the 
bar, and lay there in apparent unconsciousness. 
But presently his hand went stealing to his hip 
pocket, drew out an ugly knife and opened it. 
Someone shouted a warning, then the crowd 
closed in in front of us. Presently there was the 
sound of a heavy fall inside the shack, and every- 
body came stumbling out with scared faces. We 
had a fleeting glimpse of a figure lying on the 
floor, with livid, ghastly face. The bartender 
hustled everybody out, and closed the shop. I 
do not know if the man was dead. There was 
no information to be had. Months afterwards 
we heard on the trail that a murder had been 
committed at the Summit during the summer, 
but there was nothing to show whether it was 
this case or another. 

Between whiles we were ceaselessly command- 
ing, urging, cajoling Wingy into making a start. 
He invariably promised to go after one more 
drink. He was a merry, little devil in his cups ; 



42 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

he made us laugh, and then we could do nothing 
with him. Finally he fell in with the lady who 
had wielded the pistol the night before. She 
was a strange apparition in a freshly-starched 
" neglige," with two black pig-tails hanging 
down her back, and a face as hard as a brick 
and the same color. She took him into her place 
to tell him how it happened. Her raucous voice 
came through the open windows to us waiting 
patiently with the team in the sunshine. 

When Wingy at last appeared we made final 
plea with him to start. 

" Go ahead ! " he cried gaily. " Take the team 
boys, and drive it to H — ! " 

There really seemed to be nothing better to do. 
We started along the trail, and we never saw 
Wingy again. 



CHAPTER III 

OUR OUTFIT 

WHAT did you eat?" "What did you 
take with you?" How did you con- 
trive for yourselves?" are the ques- 
tions most commonly asked us. Our domestic 
arrangements on the trail are a never-failing 
mystery to those accustomed to a well-furnished 
house, a kitchen range, and a telephone to the 
store. On the other hand, those who have 
worked the trails themselves have the interest 
of a fellow-feeling in what we learned to do — ■ 
and learned to avoid. So it seems that a chap- 
ter on the subject is called for. It may be 
skipped. 

For the greater part of the four months the 
folding boat was at once our home, our com- 
panion, and our trusty steed. We grew to know 
its ways so well that it became almost like a 
third member of the party. Its actions under 
varying conditions are fully described in the nar- 
rative. On the whole it served us well. We 
could carry it anywhere, and yet its capacity 

43 



44 ^NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

was greater than we ever needed to use. Its 
jbeaminess was useful on a long voyage, for we 
could eat and sleep in it in comfort. Its light- 
ness of draft and the flexibility of its sides were 
of the greatest service in descending swift and 
shallow streams. It simply bounced off the 
stones in the rapids, and its tough canvas skin 
was not once pierced during the voyage, except 
through the carelessness of the driver who car- 
ried it across Giscomb portage — and that hardly 
counts. On the other hand it must be borne in 
mind that we used it exclusively in down-stream 
work, and in slack water. Its lightness and its 
beaminess would count against it in working 
against the current. 

There are several makes of folding boats on 
the market. We tried the two leading types, 
and we found the boat with wooden ribs much 
better suited to our purpose, being lighter, stiffer, 
and easier to take up and set down. For jour- 
neys where heavy winds and seas are occasion- 
ally to be expected the round-bottomed type of 
boat is the better. 

These boats are usually supplied with oars 
and oarlocks, why I do not understand, because 
for two men under any circumstances paddles 
are infinitely better. You cannot descend rap- 
ids with oars, nor navigate tortuous or shallow 



OUR OUTFIT 45 

streams, nor could the average man spend ten 
hours at the oars day after day as we did at the 
paddles without soon reaching the point of ex- 
haustion. The paddles supplied with our boat 
were an insult to a riverman, and the little camp- 
stools on which we were supposed to sit were 
not only useless, but positively dangerous in 
broken water. In the foregoing are hints for 
the manufacturers of these boats if they care to 
take them. We built a little thwart over the 
stern for me to sit on, and my partner sat on the 
roll of blankets, never an altogether satisfactory 
seat. 

Our tent was made after our own design. It 
was merely a little lean-to 9' x 10' 6'', open in 
front to the fire. It could be slung in a few min- 
utes between two trees, or anywhere on open 
ground with a couple of rough poles. It was 
lighter, more compact, and easier to put up than 
the A tents, but I confess that it left something 
to be desired when the wind changed at night. 
For a trip such as ours where every ounce of 
weight had to be considered as well as every 
cubic inch of bulk, it would be an almost perfect 
rig with the addition of a detachable flap to hang 
down in front. In the daytime this flap could 
be used for any of the purposes of an ordinary; 
cover. We were unable to obtain any water- 



46 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

proof silk in Edmonton, but for small traveling 
tents that material is better in every respect, and 
is worth far more than the difference in cost. 
We had of course a cheesecloth mosquito bar 
cut to fit inside the tent. That was really the 
main purpose of the tent. After the mosquito 
season was over we rarely needed a shelter. 

As to blankets, my first rule is to take more 
than enough. I would rather go to bed sup- 
perless than be cold at night. There are no 
blankets in America so good as Hudson's Bay 
blankets. The white ones are the best, and the 
Indians can rarely be persuaded to buy the col- 
ored ones. There are sound reasons for this. 
One pair is generally considered enough for a 
man, but I would always cheerfully shoulder 
the extra weight of two pair. They sometimes 
made remarks in the North as to the unnecessary 
amplitude of our beds, but just the same there 
were nights when we were the only ones in 
the crowd who got any comfortable sleep. 

Hudson's Bay blankets are always of the same 
weight. They come in various sizes still called, 
as in ancient times, " four-point," " three-and- 
a-half point," '^ three-point," etc. The distin- 
guishing lines are woven in black into the corner 
of the blanket, so that there can be no discussion 
as to what you are getting. The goodness of this 
article is instantly evident in the look and the 



OUR OUTFIT 47 

feel of it. It is one of the worthy old things 
which has not deteriorated under modern meth- 
ods of manufacture. 

There are at least ten good reasons why blan- 
kets are better than sleeping-bags. I will men- 
tion only one of them, and that is, if you prefer 
a sleeping-bag you can make one out of your 
blankets anyway. All that is needed are a few 
saddlers' pins. 

For clothes, blue flannel shirts and overalls 
are the simple requirements of the North. Be- 
ware of the elaborate, bepocketed sporting-suits 
if you wish to make friends with the people. A 
coat of any kind is of small use on such a trip. 
Its warmth in relation to its weight is small, and 
it hampers the freedom of your arms. You will 
find that you never wear it; it is simply another 
thing to be looked after. We each carried two 
sweaters. After August fifteenth heavy under- 
wear is essential. For footwear we started in 
with moccasins, and kept to them right through. 
They are comfortable, but expensive if there is 
any walking or climbing to be done. Some of 
ours wore out in a single day. In wet and cold 
weather there is nothing like shoe-packs. A 
good soft felt hat is a wise investment. We had 
cheap ones, and they soon collapsed under stress 
of weather. 

Everybody wants to know what kind of a gun 



48 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

to take. It would be vain to enter into a discus- 
sion as to the different makes. We had the new 
Savage .303, a truly first-class weapon, but not 
the best for this country, because it was impossi- 
ble to buy ammunition for it outside of the cities, 
and of course impossible to trade off our sur- 
plus. The Winchester .30-. 30 is the gun of the 
country, and shells of this size are as good a 
means of exchange as money. As an experiment 
we took a long-barreled .22 revolver for small 
game, but it was not a success. It had not power 
enough to kill. 

Where traveling is to be the main object with 
hunting merely incidental, a good .22 rifle is 
the best weapon, and it is arsenal enough. This 
is what the Indians carry while working the 
trails. Of course, if you are after bear or moose, 
you must have something heavier, though I have 
seen a bear brought down with a .22 — but it took 
the greater part of a box of shells. 

In most parts small game is plentiful; grouse 
in British Columbia, prairie chicken in Alberta, 
duck on all the sloughs, and rabbits, if you want 
them, everywhere. The Indians say that there 
is no nourishment in rabbits; a man can eat all 
he wants and still be " poor." Notwithstand- 
ing the temptation of small game everywhere, a 
shotgun is not very serviceable for long journeys 









'^■T^M^'-^^^ 



'<*m^i^m> 









A mass of gray rock, fantastically cleft and terraced and piled 




A row of log shacks thatch'd with canvas 



OUR OUTFIT 49 

on account of the great weight and bulk of the 
ammunition. But if you are to be more or less 
in touch with the trading-posts it is a different 
matter. 

" Grub " is the great concern of the North. 
In civilized communities we take our food for 
granted, there are always the stores; north of 
fifty-four it is different. Hand to mouth living 
is not long permitted in that rigorous climate. 
" Look ahead with your grub," is a favorite say- 
ing, and, " As long as we have grub enough for 
the winter nothing matters," is another. When 
a man gets his winter's supply of flour stacked 
behind the stove he sits back with an easy mind, 
like our friend Chase on Lesser Slave River. 

A careful calculation in advance is necessary. 
To one who has never thought of the subject the 
bulk of food that one ordinary-sized person can 
get outside of in, say, a month is surprising. 
Two pounds of flour per day per man is the 
Hudson's Bay Company allowance. We did not 
use quite as much as this, but we eked out our 
flour with rice. Man to man the Indians are not 
as big as we are, but they can eat circles around 
us, — when the food is forthcoming. When it is 
not, they do without much more gracefully than 
we do. Their lives are a constant succession of 
feasts and famines. 



50 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

About six ounces of bacon each per day was 
enough for us, and we did with less when we 
had to. It must be remembered, though, that 
we often had as much game and fish as we could 
eat, and we nearly always had another animal 
food in the shape of butter, that we set great 
store by. Good preserved butter is to be had 
at all the trading-posts (when they are not out 
of it) and fresh butter at the farming settlements 
at Peace River Crossing, and Fort Vermilion. 

We found that we each consumed nearly six 
ounces of sugar a day. Incessant exertion in the 
open air creates a natural craving for sugar. 
Never be tempted by the great saving in weight 
to take saccharin to sweeten your tea and coffee. 
The sweetness of sugar is merely incidental; it 
is the heat and energy it supplies that make it 
indispensable. 

Beans were not a success with us. We could 
rarely stop long enough to cook them properly. 
Rice, on the other hand, we learned to prize 
greatly. Too much cannot be said in praise of 
rice on such a journey; it is easy to cook in 
camp ; it can be served in any number of ways ; 
and the human stomach never seems to weary 
of it. Here is the method of cooking that we 
evolved after long practice: 

Wash two scant cupfuls of rice in cold salted 



OVR OUTFIT 51 

water. Wash it as much as you like. Mean- 
while have your water boiling furiously over the 
fire, the larger the pot, and the more water the 
better; plenty of water is an essential. Drain 
off the cold water, and empty the rice into the 
pot rather slowly, so as not to chill the boiling 
water. Let it boil hard for twenty minutes or 
less. As the time approaches, taste it occasion- 
ally and remove it before it is quite done, that 
is while the grains still retain a faint suggestion 
of toughness in the middle. The proper mo- 
ment to take it ofif can only be determined by 
practice. Every drop of the starchy water 
should now be drained off the rice, and the pot 
hung back over the fire, high up, for the 
grains to steam and swell and finish cooking. 
Meanwhile you are frying the bacon or what 
not. 

This Is good to eat with soup, or bacon fat, or 
stewed tomatoes, or raisins and sugar, or with 
almost anything you have. Our favorite dish 
was a stew de luxe of rice, tomatoes, onions, and 
bacon cut small. The quantity of rice I have 
mentioned sufficed for our dinner, with enough 
left over to fry for breakfast. 

Another essential was dried fruit. We took 
both apricots and prunes. The former went 
farther, bulk for weight, but the latter wore bet- 



52 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

ter as a steady article of diet. In spite of the 
jokes at its expense after all there is nothing like 
the humble Prune. As to dried apples, like the 
little girl we all know, when they are good they 
are very, very good, and when they are bad, they 
are horrid. Great care should be taken in buy- 
ing them. 

Tea, salt, pepper, and baking-powder com- 
pleted our list of necessaries. Coffee and cocoa 
are very good, but they may be done without 
at a pinch. You do not find them often in the 
North. Our fondness for cocoa was quite a 
joke to our hardy friends of the trails, and there 
is a noted explorer who is known far and wide 
in the country as " Chocolate Harry." As to 
cofifee it is hard to carry; for it soon loses its 
savor when ground. There is now, however, an 
excellent coffee powder on the market. 

It is when you come to the luxuries, the little 
things that make meals worth eating, that the 
opportunity for discussion really arises. First 
on our list we put '' Erbswurst mit speck." It 
really belongs in the list of necessities. If there 
is a camper or tripper who has not yet discov- 
ered Erbswurst, he is unworthy of the name. 
We have found it equally savory and nourishing 
on Lesser Slave Lake and on Lake Okeechobee. 
On long, damp trips such as ours it does not 



OVK OUTFIT sz 

keep quite as well as one might wish. The pro- 
prietors would do well to put out a damp-proof 
package. 

Another excellent thing is the de-hydrated 
vegetable, especially man's odorous friend, the 
onion. Our de-hydrated onions were worth 
their weight in gold. Potatoes, too, are good in 
countries where fresh ones are unobtainable. If 
you are going into a game country take some de- 
hydrated cranberries along. On the other hand, 
the soup powders were not satisfactory; in fact, 
all the patent soups we tried proved to be pretty 
poor living, except Erbswurst. Bouillon cubes, 
however, are useful. The milk and &gg pow- 
ders can be recommended too ; indeed the camp 
bill of fare has endless possibilities nowadays. 

For a good, quick camp soup take a can of 
corn, a cup of milk (condensed milk diluted, or 
milk powder dissolved), two bouillon cubes dis- 
solved in a little warm water, and a tablespoon- 
ful of bacon dripping (or butter) rubbed 
smoothly into two tablespoonfuls of flour. 
Bring the milk and the corn to a boil together 
and add the bouillon and the flour paste. Let it 
boil for a minute or two, stirring well, and season 
with salt and pepper and a dash of Worcester- 
shire sauce — if you have it. This mixture al- 
ways made my partner groan with satisfaction. 



54 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

A can of tomatoes may be substituted for the 
corn, but they should be thoroughly stewed be- 
fore the milk is put in, and a pinch of soda and a 
teaspoonful of sugar should be added. The 
milk must be stirred in slowly. 

Canned vegetables and fruits are very bulky 
and heavy in proportion to their net food value 
' — you cannot afford to pack a load of water on 
your back, and so we never stocked such things, 
but bought them occasionally when we could, at 
the trading-posts. The price is by the can, the 
contents do not figure, and it ranges from forty 
to seventy-five cents according to the remoteness 
of the post. At one post we picked up a large 
can of apples for a dollar and a half that was 
one of the finest things we ever tasted. 

I wonder how many beside ourselves have dis- 
covered the virtues of citric acid on the trgil. 
We took a small package of the crystals for use 
in case we should need an anti-scorbutic, but a 
pinch of it in our tea in lieu of milk proved so 
good that we used it all the time, and the little 
package of " dope " became one of the most val- 
ued things in the grub-box. We put a little in 
stewed fruit, in apple sauce, or in anything where 
lemons would have served, and I'm sure it 
helped keep us fit during the weeks when we 
had no fresh food whatever. Ten cents worth 



OUR OUTFIT 55 

lasted out the summer, though it was continually- 
getting spilled. 

Our kitchen outfit was simplicity itself ; knives, 
forks, spoons, cups, and plates; two skillets and a 
nest of four tin pails; that was all, and it was 
ample. The only mistake was in having the 
pails of tin. Tin serves very well for a week or 
two, but after that one becomes a little weary of 
the incessant flavor of tin in the food, and in con- 
junction with acids the result is positively dang- 
erous. Agate-ware is well worth its extra 
weight. Still better are the copper pots sold by 
the Hudson's Bay Company. Aluminum, gen- 
erally speaking, is too fragile to stand the wear 
and tear of rough travel. 

A sheath-knife with a razor edge is an indis- 
pensable adjunct to a camp kitchen. There is 
something attractive and devilish about it too. 
It is the first thing a tenderfoot always buys. 
The axe is really a kitchen utensil, also, and the 
most important article in the entire outfit. 
Watch it well therefore! If anybody follows 
our route they will find ours on the sand-bar at 
the left-hand side going down, immediately be- 
low the junction of the Parsnip and the Finlay. 
Fortunately we had a hatchet in reserve. 

Axes bring us naturally to the subject of fire- 
building on which an entire chapter might be 



56 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

written. But I shall not write It. What would 
be the use? You cannot tell anybody anything 
about building fires. Camp-fire vanity is a form 
of egoism from which the most modest man in 
other respects is not exempt. Every man be- 
lieves that he alone has discovered the true best 
way of building a fire, and his scorn of all other 
ways knows no bounds. 

The tenderfoot Is betrayed by his fire just as 
surely as the experienced tripper Is made known 
by his. The Indians' fires are the sloppiest and 
the most successful. They seem to be able to 
make anything burn in any kind of weather, and 
they are gifted with a special instinct for finding 
dry wood. Fire-making is the grand discipline 
of the woods. During the summer I watched 
my young partner develop from a novice to an 
expert of no mean ability. 

For cooking, to begin with we piled stones to 
the leeward when we had stones, or set up several 
green logs, driving pegs into the ground to keep 
them from rolling down. Against this we built 
the fire, and if there was bread to be baked, we 
dug a shallow hole in front for the pans, so that 
the heat was partly radiated down from above. 
The pots were hung in the classic way, from sap- 
lings sharpened at one end and thrust into the 
ground, inclining over the fire. Along the 
Fraser and the Crooked Rivers we used to come 



OUR OUTFIT 57 

across regular fire-places, with uprights at each 
side and a stick across, from which hung bail- 
hooks of various sizes ready to our hands. 

Bread-making was the cook's grand trial. 
Two days out of every three the ordeal had to be 
gone through with. I grew to hate the sight of 
flour. Under the best of conditions successful 
bread-making is the result of nicely-balanced 
conditions, and with only a frying-pan and an 
open fire the difficulties are multiplied. It is a 
mistake, though, to suppose that there is no good 
bread made under these conditions. On the con- 
trary most of it was delicious. 

In the jolly cooky of Summit Lake, and in 
Mac of the Peace River canyon I had the oppor- 
tunity to study the technique of two of the clever- 
est dough-tossers in the North. Unfortunately 
they differed flatly as to method, and I was 
forced to the opinion that good bread is not a 
matter of methods but of men. As I never at- 
tained to any degree of proficiency myself, I 
have nothing of value to offer on the subject. 
Here is one suggestion, however, for cooks of the 
second class whose bread like mine sometimes 
reveals an unsuspected doughiness in the middle. 
Break it open and toast it thoroughly before the 
fire. Eaten crisp and hot it is as good in its way 
as the lightest biscuit. 

It will be observed in the course of the narra- 



58 'NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

tive that we never hired guides, except on the 
one occasion where we had to have horses to take 
us over to the Hay River. It cannot be denied 
that there was an element of f oolhardiness in this, 
but the temptation of running our own show was 
too great to be resisted. When the guide knows 
more of the country than you do, he is the boss, 
and you have to do what you are told. How- 
ever, there is much to be said on both sides of the 
question. A capable guide is a treasure, and he 
adds a lot to the trip. But they are rare, and the 
ordinary Indian who offers his services so freely 
is worse than useless. You soon find yourself 
guiding him like a child. Their sense of honor 
is different from ours too, and they have no 
scruples against quietly decamping in the night, 
if things are not to their liking. 

I would not be understood as recommending 
inexperienced travelers to venture into the wil- 
derness without a guide. There are so many 
quicker and more merciful methods of suicide! 
Traveling entirely by one's self is of course quite 
out of the question. Even the mounted police 
do not ride alone. Be very sure of yourself be- 
fore venturing into new country without an ex- 
perienced conductor. While it is true that we 
made our way through a country unknown to us 
without guides, it will be allowed, I hope, that 



OUR OUTFIT 59 

we exercised due prudence, and It should be 
borne in mind that we were partly fitted for this 
journey by years of work on other rivers. As it 
was, the oldtimers like Max Hamilton berated 
us roundly for what they considered our foolish- 
ness. But that wouldn't keep us from doing it 
again I 



CHAPTER IV 

THE CHRISTENING OF THE " BLUNDERBUSS " 

T has been related how Wingy Sullivan in an 
excess of enthusiasm induced by squirrel 
whisky presented us at the Summit with his 
wagon and team. During the rest of that day we 
were out-and-out freighters on the tote road. 
We joined forces with another team bound our 
way, and camped in company at Mile lo B. C. 
In spite of our interesting adventures en route 
we were distressed at the slowness of our prog- 
ress. Here we had been fourteen days on the 
road and had covered but seventy-five miles. 
Our plans called for a journey of nearly three 
thousand miles. On this night it was galling to 
be obliged to stop at six o'clock with four good 
hours of daylight ahead, and when we had 
turned the horses out to graze, we pushed down 
through the bush to have a look at the Fraser 
River. 

The actual summit of the Yellowhead pass is 

so slightly defined that the Miette River which 

60 



THE ''BLUNDERBUSS'' 6i 

runs ordinarily to the east, at times of high water 
spills over the west side as well. Yellowhead 
Lake lies three miles west of the Summit. It 
has a small outlet into the Fraser, and it is about 
four miles farther west that the Fraser itself 
comes plunging down into the pass from its 
source among high glaciers to the south. 

First to last the Fraser is a watercourse of 
strong individuality. It is a river of sharp rises 
and falls, of frightful descents, of impassable 
gorges — and of peaceful stretches of great love- 
liness. Every year it nonchalantly collects its 
heavy tribute of lives. The stretch of it that we 
purposed descending had already drowned nine 
that season. The men of the country regard it 
with a rueful respect as a creature that is inso- 
lently superior to their will. They have affec- 
tionate profane names for it. All the way from 
Edmonton we had been fed on the tales of its 
terrors, and I may confess that we were thor- 
oughly scared. 

At Mile 10 it was a smooth and rapid stream 
about a hundred yards wide, flowing between tall 
spruce trees, with fore-shortened snow-clad 
mountains sticking up above the spruces. We 
knew that Moose Lake lay some seven miles by 
road below, but we had no idea of what was com- 
prised within the seven miles. However, after 



62 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

an anxious debate we decided to leave the team 
with the freighter in trust for Wingy and chance 
the river. 

After supper we set up our folding boat on the 
bank. She had never known the touch of water. 
The freighter marveled to see the shapeless bun- 
dle of canvas and sticks grow into a boat before 
his eyes. When the last peg was driven in we 
surveyed our future home narrowly. She seemed 
stout enough, and very capacious, but absurdly 
tubby in her lines. We instantly christened her 
the Blunderbuss. She reminded us of a cross 
between a wash-tub and a Venetian blind, and 
sometimes we called her the " Walloping Win- 
dow-Blind " after the well-beloved ballad. 

By nine o'clock everything was stowed, and 
we pushed off on our unknown voyage with 
hearts in our mouths. The current instantly 
gripped us as in a gigantic hand, and around the 
very first bend we fell plump into a roaring 
rapid. The poor little Blunderbuss had an as- 
tonishing christening-party. She was engulfed 
in a smother of waves and spray, and the shores 
flew by at railway speed. At times it seemed as 
if she stood straight on end, and I expected my 
partner in the bow to come tumbling back on 
my head. Then she would somersault into a 
hollow which threatened to swallow us entire. 



THE ''BLUNDERBUSS" 63 

For pure excitement there is nothing like shoot- 
ing rapids. 

It was all over In a minute. We landed below 
to get our breaths, to bail out, and to discuss the 
revealed characteristics of our craft. Her first 
trial was disappointing; she was too short and 
too light for rough water. It was very hard to 
keep her straight on, and if she broached ever so 
slightly the water came pouring aboard. On the 
other hand she answered to the paddles admir- 
ably, and later, when we had learned to handle 
her (she had to be humored a little like all of the 
sex) we were satisfied that we could not have 
had anything better suited to our needs. 

The hour that followed is written down In our 
note-book as the most exciting of our lives up to 
that time. The rapids followed in close succes- 
sion, and each one offered a new set of problems. 
There was one time when we were hurled on the 
crest of a torrent straight at a spruce tree that had 
partly fallen out over the river. We thought we 
were gone then, but we paddled like maniacs, 
and in the act of resigning ourselves to the worst, 
somehow we got around the end of the tree. In 
another place the river was completely blocked 
by a fantastic jam of great trees brought down 
on the last freshet. We had to land here and 
carry all our stuff around through the forest. 



64 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

One of the nastiest bits was at a place where 
the railroad had undertaken to build a jetty to 
divert the course of the river. It was not quite 
finished, and the whole river poured through a 
fifteen foot opening to make a right-angle turn 
immediately beyond. Around the bend the sit- 
uation was further complicated by a boom 
stretching all the way across the river to enable 
the workmen to pass back and forth. However, 
we made the plunge and the turn successfully, 
and the whole gang rushed to hold up the end log 
of the boom to enable us to pass beneath.. We 
went our ways pursued by friendly cheers and 
jeers. 

This stretch of the river was most beautiful, 
but we could hardly take it in since our eyes were 
glued to the capricious river ahead. It wound 
back and forth in its narrow valley like a wrong- 
headed person, launching itself vainly against 
the bases of the mountains on one side, and then 
straight back against the other. Where it was 
seven miles to Moose Lake by road, it must have 
been fifteen or more by the river. We had 
glimpses of dazzling cataracts falling over the 
sky-scrapers above our heads. We camped at 
the head of the worst rapid so far. The drop at 
the beginning was so great we could not see from 
the boat what lay beyond. 




A surveyor, his assistant aiul tliiee Indians 




Hntrance to the second canyon of 
the Fraser 



Their greatest treasure in tiie world 
was a phonograph 



THE ''BLUNDERBUSS" 65 

The greater part of the next day was spent in 
crossing Moose Lake. " Mile 17 " at its head is 
the terminus of the tote road. It was reputed to 
be a much wickeder place than the Summit, but 
we did not stop to see. It is only ten miles across 
the lake, but we had a strong head wind, which 
kicked up a nasty sea and held back the clumsy 
Blunderbuss as if the giant hand which assisted 
us the day before was now turned against us. It 
was very discouraging. We finally landed and 
let the wind blow itself out. 

Moose Lake offered another series of pictures 
that stagger description. The great snow-cap- 
ped mountains press together, squeezing the lake 
between. The range to the north is known as the 
Rainbow mountains from the striking outcrop of 
red and yellow rocks near the summits. It was 
an awful beauty rather than pleasing, for the 
mountain-sides were burnt over long ago, and 
the forests are only of haggard gray sticks. Be- 
tween stretches the cold green lake, making one 
feel that it is thousands of feet deep. But when 
we got to the westerly end of the lake and looked 
back, the towering ranges sweeping away into 
the distance all drenched in the late sunshine 
made a sight of unforgettable loveliness. 

The tote road recommences at the foot of the 
lake — they traverse the gap in barges — and we 



66 'NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

inquired here as to the means of further trans- 
port. We knew that within the next twenty 
miles or so old Lady Fraser romped down a thou- 
sand foot flight of stairs. The result of our in- 
quiries was discouraging. It appeared that at 
this end of the road there were no " Gyppos " or 
'' wheel-barrow outfits," as they call the indepen- 
dent freighters, and the contractors, we were 
told, refused to carry a pound that was not of 
their own. 

This night, July nth, there was a heavy frost. 
We awoke in our camp at the " cache " covered 
with rime, and the tea we had left in our un- 
washed cups was frozen solid. At the same time 
in all the great cities of the country the people 
were dying from the heat by the score. 

Under the circumstances we decided to push 
on down the river as far as we could, and then 
if nothing better turned up, carry our stuff on 
our backs the rest of the way to Tete Jaune cache. 
Hereafter we took the precaution to land at the 
head of each rapid to look it over, and it was well 
that we did so. We had gone about three miles 
when we were stopped by one of the usual swift 
places on a bend. We had to climb a bold prom- 
ontory to get a look at the river beyond, and as 
we rounded it a hoarse roar smote our ears, and 
a gorge opened at our feet with a tumbling cas- 



THE ''BLUNDERBUSS" 67 

cade in the bottom that made the worst rapids we 
had descended above look like riffles. We could 
see nearly half a mile of it, growing worse and 
worse as it descended, and then it roared out of 
sight away below. It was no place for the Blun- 
derbuss. 

The tote road proved to be half a mile from 
the river at this point, and we were obliged to put 
our stuff on our inexperienced backs and clamber 
up hill. It was cruel hard work, and the half 
mile effectually destroyed our enthusiasm for 
walking the rest of the twenty. We went into 
camp beside the road, and I walked back to the 
" cache " at Mile 27 to see what could be done. 
Two of " Foley's " teams were pulling out for 
the cache next morning, and I found it was possi- 
ble with discretion to make a private arrange- 
ment with the drivers. They couldn't have 
taken us on at the cache, but down the road it 
was all right, so that our little trip down the 
river was not wasted. 

These two carried out their bargain to the let- 
ter, and moreover proved to be highly enter- 
taining companions. I regret that I cannot for 
obvious reasons sketch their portraits. 

For the rest of the way the tote road followed 
the river more or less closely. We were never 
out of sound of its deep voice, and we had fre- 



68 NEW RIVERS. OF THE NORTH 

quent glimpses of its wild, white plunges, its 
quiet, green pools, and its extraordinary barri- 
cades of drift-logs. But the great event of this 
part of the journey was the view of Mount Rob- 
son, 13,700 feet, the highest known peak in Brit- 
ish North America. 

To the traveler bound westward as we were 
its first appearance is arranged with matchless 
dramatic effect. It lies about eleven miles north 
of the Fraser, blocking the valley of the Grand 
Forks, and the whole mass of it is visible to its 
base. It bursts on the beholder as he rounds a 
hill, complete in its magnificence. Our freight- 
ers had prepared us for the sight, and our antici- 
pation was keyed up to the hightest pitch, never- 
theless we were stunned with astonishment. 
There was no question of its supremacy. It 
dominated the whole world thereabouts, and the 
Heavens too, and the mountains that had been 
filling us with awe a moment before became pyg- 
mies. It opened up to us a brand new conception 
of nobility and loveliness. Its dazzling, far- 
flung peak of ice against the delicate blue of the 
sky was like a symbol of the highest aspirations 
in the breast of man. 

We set off in a bee-line pell-mell through the 
down timber to gain some vantage point from 
which we might see still more of the beautiful 



THE ''BLUNDERBUSS" 69 

monster and take his picture. It was very hard 
going, and we found that the higher we climbed 
and the nearer we approached, only the more ob- 
structions rose between. Finally from a ridge 
about seven miles distant we got a couple of 
pictures. We then scrambled down to the level 
of the Grand Forks River where we got a com- 
pleter view. We found a trail by the river and 
came within about three miles of the base of 
Mount Robson where we took our last picture. 
By this time the sun had swung away round to 
the west, and the valley was dark at our feet. 

All the pictures of course are very disap- 
pointing. It is nothing less than sacrilege to 
attempt to reduce a king among mountain peaks 
to the limits of a three by five plate. Mount 
Robson cannot be conveyed by any means. You 
must go to it. It was a long time before we 
could tear ourselves away. We relinquished our 
supper rather. I understand we were particu- 
larly fortunate in our day. The mountain does 
not often choose to reveal itself fully to mortals, 
but on this afternoon the clouds were floating 
even higher than the peak, and every line of its 
face was revealed in the glory of the sunshine. 
We went back to camp with our heads over our 
shoulder watching the mountain turn rose-color 
in the failing light. 



70 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

When one describes it as a mass of gray rock: 
fantastically cleft and terraced and piled; every 
ledge heaped with snow, and the gorges choked 
with pale green ice, it conveys nothing. Our 
reason told us we were looking at staggering 
cliffs, at great gulfs of snow and ice, and at 
far-flung waterfalls, but the effect on the inner 
sense was of something tender and unreal. It 
was as far removed from our ken as the sky, 
against which it floated. The mountain was en- 
wrapped in its own loveliness like a mantle. It 
seemed not like a real mountain, but a dream 
that was bound to recede as it was approached. 

Early next day we came within striking dis- 
tance of Tete Jaune cache, and we took to the 
water again, to save our friends the embarrass- 
ment of bringing us into camp. There were 
some rapids between, but nothing to put us about. 
Tete Jaune cache is at the western gateway to 
the Rocky Mountains, at the head of possible 
navigation on the Fraser. This was as far as the 
railway construction had been carried at that 
time. Tete Jaune has its history; the Indians of 
British Columbia and the Indians of the plains 
once met here annually to exchange salmon for 
leather. The pass and the cache get their name 
from an early trader here whose blonde locks 
made a great impression on the Indians, but 



THE ''BLUNDERBUSS" Jt 

while the name of the pass has been rendered 
into English, the cache keeps the old French 
form. 

We were disappointed in the place we had 
heard so much about along the line. There was 
nothing to be seen but a wretched stopping-house 
in a tent, a small store which was closed in the 
absence of the proprietor on a berry-picking ex- 
pedition, and a camp of degenerate Indians on 
the south bank. Try as we would, we were un- 
able to acquire any definite information about 
the river below. A roving traveler who had ar- 
rived before us was anxious to join forces with 
our party, but the twelve-foot Blunderbuss would 
not stand the strain. 

The Indians at Tete Jaune were a little less 
sophisticated than their cousins at Mile 88. 
This is a small community of the Beavers who 
have strayed from the main tribe along the 
Peace. There is a trail connecting the head- 
waters of the Big Smoky (the largest tributary 
of the Peace) with the Fraser. These Indians 
lived in tepees, and alongside they had built 
picturesque summer shelters of leaves. They 
are fishermen, and they reap their harvest when 
the salmon come up the Fraser in August. 

We visited the tepees in search of moccasins. 
There were only women in evidence, and com- 



72 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

munications proved difficult. At our efforts to 
make ourselves understood they only squirmed 
and tittered in spasms of embarrassment. The 
great size of our feet was a bar for one thing, 
moreover there is a widespread joke about buy- 
ing moccasins that we did not know then. It is 
not the kind of joke that is told in Sunday-school 
so I am unable to impart it generally. I will 
merely say that in buying moccasins it is more 
discreet to apply to the lady's husband. 

We found a man at last, and he ordered his 
wife to make a pair of moccasins and to repair 
our old ones. This man had a few words of 
English, but it was vain to try to get any infor- 
mation about the river from him. He did tell 
us, however, what fish there were and how to 
catch them. We took a photograph of this fam- 
ily. Their greatest treasure in the world was a 
phonograph. It was " broke," but they were 
none the less proud of it. The man insisted on 
having the horn show in the picture, and here it 
is. 

I had the advantage of overhearing a frank 
opinion of our outfit at Tete Jaune. It was very 
hot, and I was lying under the shade of some 
bushes on the bank. My partner was still among 
the tepees waiting for his moccasins. Two men 
sat down on the bank above my head; the Blun- 



THE ''BLUNDERBUSS" 73 

derbuss was drawn up on the beach below them, 
but they could not see me. 

"Well, that's a H— of a lookin' boat! " said 
one voice. They both laughed uproariously. 

" Looks like a piece of cheese-cloth and a few 
barrel-hoops! " the same voice went on. " And 
going to beard old Lady Fraser in a contraption 
like that! Gosh! the first time they hit a snag 
the whole outfit '11 crumple up! " Again they 
laughed. 

" Who are they? " asked the other voice. 

" Oh, I dunno. Two smart young guys from 
the East. You can't tell them nothin'." 

" Nine men drowned in the river this spring," 
remarked the second speaker. He went on to 
fill in the harrowing details, which I will omit. 

" Well, take it from me, there's goin' to be two 
more ! " said the other. At that they both roared 
with laughter again as if they would never stop. 

I jumped up in great indignation — not because 
they had prognosticated our taking-off, but be- 
cause they considered it such a rich joke. It 
was a white man and a breed. They looked 
rather foolish at the sight of me. 

" Do you know anything about the river? " 
I demanded of the white man. 

" No," he said, " nor I don't want to!" 

" Do you? " I asked of the breed. 



74 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

He shook his head. " Only forty mile down," 
he said. 

I made a suitable rejoinder and walked with 
great dignity to the Blunderbuss. But the white 
man continued to laugh. 



CHAPTER V 

OLD LADY FRASER 

WE pushed off from Tete Jaune cache with 
the feeling that our journey was now 
beginning in earnest. The busy tote 
road and all the habitations of men were behind 
us, and the current swept us down at a rate that 
made the possibility of ever coming back that 
way in the Blunderbuss very doubtful. I cannot 
say that our minds were at ease in respect to what 
lay before us, still we knew that it had been an 
ancient trade route, and we said to ourselves if 
the Indians could get through we could. 

Luck favored us again. Three miles down 
the river at a shack known thereabouts as " the 
Buster House " we found one of " the Latimer 
boys " making a dug-out, a man to whom we 
shall always feel grateful. Without any false 
alarms on the one hand, nor deceitful assurances 
of safety on the other, he told us exactly what 
w^e had to expect in the river. He gave us the 
distances correctly, and drew a rough map of the 
worst places In my partner's note-book. A man 

75 



76 NEW RIVERS OF THE 'NORTH 

like this is a rare find In a new country; every- 
one volunteered information to us, but most of 
it proved to be grotesquely Inaccurate, and we 
soon learned to distrust everything we heard. 
We learned from Latimer that it was nearly 
three hundred miles to Giscomb portage, or 
double what we had guaged from our map. 
There was one bad rapid to shoot and two dan- 
gerous canyons. 

The days that followed were the loveliest and 
the most uneventful of the journey. The weather 
was glorious, and for the greater part of the way 
the terrible Fraser was a very lamb in its be- 
havior. We loafed down on the current, soak- 
ing it all in as free, as lonely, and as happy as 
savages. The milky green river swinging round 
its invariable bends, the unbroken ranks of the 
noble spruces, and the mountains looking over 
their tops, it was all our own. 

There was a fly in our ointment of course — 
millions of them In fact! Heaven help the poor 
souls who are obliged to travel overland in this 
country during the summer! Firstly there are 
the mosquitoes, secondly the black flies, and 
thirdly an infinitesimal variety that the Indians 
call " no-see-ums." On the whole we escaped 
very easily for our cheese-cloth " kibosh " kept 
them out at night, and they rarely followed us 



OLD LADY FRJSER 77 

out into the middle of the stream. It was the 
cook who literally got it in the neck. 

This part of the Fraser follows a broad, open 
valley tending northwestward. The country 
has not been burnt over, and the timber is prime- 
val in its magnificence. Never will we forget 
the cathedral-like grandeur and gloom of our 
camping-places under the lofty boughs. For the 
most part the woods are carpeted with a showy 
plant locally called the devil's-club. It has 
huge, pale, three-fingered leaves armed with 
spikes, and it makes a highly-effective flooring 
to the vaulted aisles of the trees. Eagles, hawks, 
owls, kingfishers, and the ubiquitous chickadees 
were the principal disturbers of the peace. 
There was another bird we never saw, but nearly 
every evening we heard his wistful, long-drawn 
call in a haunting minor. 

The mountains were of a more intimate char- 
acter than the Rockies. Among the gray rocks 
and snow-fields of the summits appeared wide 
patches of dazzling green grass that made a 
feast to the eye. The lower slopes were all 
clothed in the soberer green of spruce, and all 
day long the whole was pied with changing cloud 
shadows. By sunset our enthusiasm became in- 
articulate. Long, dark vistas of the river hem- 
med in by the trees opened at the end in a veri- 



78 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

table welter of gold. Every night the hills 
against the sinking sun took on a strange, rich 
purple dress shot with dull green. For several 
days running there was a forest fire far down 
the river, and the smoky atmosphere crim- 
soned the sun, and added the last touch of un- 
earthly loveliness to the whole scene. 

To us fresh from the world the great charm of 
this river was in its big lonesomeness. Strangely 
enough there are no Indians along its shores, 
though it is a good hunting-ground. We saw 
innumerable tracks of bear, moose, caribou, etc.; 
beavers plunged madly into the water as we ap- 
proached, and the night we camped at Bear 
River a mountain lion padded round our tent 
and growled fretfully. On the fourth day after 
leaving Tete Jaune my partner fleshed his 
maiden bullet in a fine young male moose, shot 
from the moving boat. It was out of season, of 
course, but travelers in remote British Columbia 
may take out prospectors' licenses, which .permit 
them to kill for meat. Had we not got the 
moose we should have gone hungry later, as the 
sequel will show. 

Two days before that we had stopped at the 
only inhabited dwelling we saw on the whole 
way after leaving Buster House. This was the 
establishment of a modest pioneer, who was cul- 



OLD LADY ERASER 79 

tivating a pathetic little garden, while he pa- 
tiently waited for the railroad to come through 
and repay him for his labor and his lonesomeness. 
He presented us with a quantity of caribou meat, 
and we returned with a large bottle of prepared 
milk tablets that we were tired of carrying. I 
hope he does not hold it against us. 

For three days after that we did not see a 
mortal soul. On the fourth morning our hearts 
bounded at the sight of a black spot at the end 
of a long reach and the flash of a wet paddle in 
the sun. At over a mile's distance we were 
greeted by the shrill hail of the country. It was 
one of the long, graceful dug-outs of the Fraser, 
containing a surveyor with his assistant and three 
Indians, bound up-stream for Bear River. We 
lay on our paddles and had a talk. The leader 
of the party was an exceedingly frank and like- 
able young man. It does not do to admire any- 
thing of a man's possessions in the North. He 
had a reflector oven lying on top of his load to 
which we casually referred. Instantly it was 
presented to us, and we could not refuse it with- 
out giving offense. All we had to offer in return 
was fresh moose meat. Before parting we took 
each other's photographs. 

On the third day from Tete Jaune we success- 
fully passed the long and dangerous Goat River 



8o NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

rapids by hugging the northerly shore. On the 
fifth day we reacheci the famous Grand Canyon 
of which we had heard such terrifying tales. 
Most of the men who have been drowned in this 
place are supposed to have been carried into it 
unawares. We were fortunately provided with 
Latimer's directions, but even without them I 
do not see how any but a blind man could mistake 
what was before him here. However, a raft is 
hard to stop. 

The level, forested valley that we had been 
descending for five days, was suddenly heaved 
up by transverse ridges of rock. A great ridge 
jutted out into the river, forcing the current 
through a narrow channel around the end. The 
whole look of the place was different from w^hat 
had gone before. Once around that point of 
rock nothing could turn a boat back. The river 
dropped steeply and went roaring down between 
rocky banks and around a bend. Landing, we 
looked over the rapids as far as we could see 
them and decided to portage. We might have 
descended it safely; it was fearfully rough it is 
true, but the channel seemed to be clear. How- 
ever, there was a stretch we could not see, and 
we were too far away from fresh supplies to 
risk our precious grub. 

On the south side of the river there is a well- 




Once around that point of rock, nothing could turn a boat back 




The drift-pile at the mouth of the second canyon 




Ourselves in the Tiltiiideybiiss — The surveyor's picture 




The start at Summit Lake 



OLD LADY FRASER 81 

beaten portage trail. It is about half a mile 
long; up a steep hill, along the top, and down 
the other side. We were obliged to make three 
trips back and forth, and it was a cruel job. In 
the bush the air was as hot and steamy as a Turk- 
ish bath, and the mosquitoes — ye gods! They 
say that mosquitoes go for several generations 
sometimes without tasting blood, and I am pre- 
pared to believe it of these. They and their 
forefathers had been saving up a long time for us. 
And our hands were full ; they had us where they 
wanted us. It was at moments like this that my 
young partner showed the stuff that was in him. 
I remember we had a row there in the middle 
of the trail because he thought my end of the 
boat was more awkward to carry than his. 

At the other end of the portage there was a 
charming little lake, hemmed in all around by 
steep and rocky walls. At the lower end of the 
lake the water found its way out through an- 
other canyon, which enjoys a no less sinister 
reputation than the first. It is neither so rough 
nor so long, but it is filled with mighty whirl- 
pools. There is something supernatural in the 
fear inspired by a whirlpool. 

We landed as before to make an investigation. 
Alas I the portage trail was much steeper than the 
other, and the mosquitoes, if that were possible, 



82 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

even more lustful for blood. We climbed to a 
projecting point of the wall of rock and looked 
over. The sight was not reassuring; there were 
the whirlpools in good sooth, but at least from 
this point we could see all the way through the 
canyon. It was about a quarter of a mile to the 
smooth water, with a double bend intervening. 
This was much more like the canyon one pic- 
tures, with walls of rock rising sheer and smooth 
out of the water. Where we stood the wall was 
about seventy-five feet high and considerably 
higher farther along. 

At the head of the canyon the lake poured its 
waters into the hole in the rocky walls exactly 
as water comes out of a full barrel when the 
bung is withdrawn. There was a kind of long, 
smooth slide of water with a grand boil-up at 
the bottom. Within the canyon the water was 
flung from side to side of the rocky walls and 
agitated as by the stirring of a titanic spoon with 
a train of whirlpools in its wake. The worst 
whirlpool of them all lurked in a corner imme- 
diately below where we stood, the very spot that 
Latimer had indicated on his map. It was a 
mighty bad place on the whole — but ashore there 
were the mosquitoes ! We finally decided to run 
it. The grand question was, how would the 
Blunderbuss behave in the whirlpool? I con- 



OLD LADY FRASER 83 

sidered that her lightness would be in her favor 
here. We decided that the thing to do if she got 
caught was to let her spin. 

We embarked, and paddled a good way back 
toward the middle of the lake in order to get 
her headed straight for the slide I have des- 
cribed. As we came about, my partner took a 
snap-shot of the entrance to the canyon. It is a 
bad picture, which is perhaps excusable. I can- 
not speak for him, but for myself I confess I was 
scared blue. 

In another moment we were in the thick of it, 
and a mad five minutes succeeded. As soon as 
we hit the slide our fears departed and we be- 
came wildly exhilarated. My only regret was 
that I could not divide myself somehow, so that 
part of me might stand on the shore and watch 
the little Blunderbuss take her header down the 
slide. We got a bit wet in the boil-up below, 
but scarcely noticed it in our pre-occupation with 
the whirlpools that were to follow. It was a 
strange piece of water, hurling us forward one 
moment, and the next thrusting us back. 

I had laid out my course from above. We 
gave the biggest whirlpool a wide berth, but 
there were others. Suddenly one yawned right 
beside the boat, a horrible black hole without 
any bottom to it. I could have leaned over and 



84 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

dropped my hat into it. We looked at each 
other with a laugh and wondered casually if we 
were going in. For a moment it raced along 
beside us, then swept off to one side. I do not 
know if it was luck or hard paddling that saved 
us. 

In the thickest of the turmoil we saw a squirrel 
swimming for his life, his shoe-button eyes al- 
most starting out of his head, and his tiny paws 
making a thousand revolutions a minute. He 
looked at us as we swept by, and his paws 
scratched vainly on the canvas side of the Bluw 
derbuss, but we were too busy to aid him. 

In another minute we were in the quiet river 
again, laughing and joking a little shakily with 
each other, and feeling intensely pleased with 
ourselves. It was rather a barren triumph, 
though, because I do not think that any of the 
few we met who knew the place ever really be- 
lieved that we had run it in the Blunderbuss. 




Fort Macleod with its little white store and the invariable flagpole 




Like tile Fraser in miniature, with its little rapids, its sharp bends 
and its densely wooded banks 



CHAPTER VI 

THE LILLIPUT RIVER 

THE Special pleasure of traveling by one's 
own exertions without guides or fore- 
knowledge of the route lies in the fact that 
everything by the way becomes charged with 
significance. It was so common for us to say 
to each other: " The character of the country is 
beginning to change " that it became quite a joke, 
but just the same we always felt a little thrill of 
anticipation, for when the banks flattened out or 
rose up, when out-croppings of rock appeared, or 
the current slyly increased its flow, we knew that 
Nature had something up her sleeve. Thus the 
sixth day on the Eraser when the hills began to 
close in on us we guessed that the river was pre- 
paring to face about on its long journey to the 
south and that the point of our departure was 
near. 

After several false discoveries Giscomb por- 
tage finally stole into view around a bend. We 
had been told that there was nothing to mark the 

85 



86 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

place but a couple of Chinamen's shacks that we 
might easily miss ; however, we found that civili- 
ization had now reached a tentacle up the river. 
A store had been erected on the bank and two or 
three little dwellings with gardens at their sides. 
There were not less than a dozen souls about the 
place, giving us after our lonely voyage quite the 
effect of a metropolis. 

Of the dozen, five were hardy young adven- 
turers who had preceded us down the river on a 
raft. They had a tale to tell of the whirlpools 
in the second canyon, which had nearly put a 
period to their journey. When we modestly 
confessed to having run it, they looked at the 
Blunderbuss and smiled politely. They were 
bound for Fort George down the river, the 
Mecca of the real estate agents. 

The next we ran into was a traveler who ar- 
rived from down-stream in an ancient dug-out 
and crawled out on the shore, soaking wet and 
cursing the rapids below that had held him in 
their grip for six days. He was a ragged, long- 
haired pioneer with the bizarre look of the soli- 
tary dweller. We christened him Fraser Cru- 
soe. His business was mysterious. He built a 
fire on the bank and spread his meager grub- 
stake in a score of dirty little canvas bags to dry 
beside it. His little dog crouched miserably 



THE LILLIPUT RIVER 87 

beside the fire, lifting sad and reproachful eyes 
to all who passed. 

Through the bush arrived still another white 
traveler in company with an Indian. This was 
Hugh Savage, a young newspaper man of Van- 
couver, bound like ourselves on a tour of obser- 
vation. We hailed each other as became broth- 
ers of the pen. He had been pursued by the 
worst of luck. The hotel at Prince George had 
burned up with the greater part of his outfit. 
Then he and his partner had been led astray by 
a lying map and had suffered great hardships 
in the bush. Finally his partner had been taken 
sick, and Savage had been compelled to carry 
him back down the Fraser to the hospital at 
Quesnel. Alone when we met him and seri- 
ously crippled by the loss of his stuff, he was still 
bent on struggling through. 

Savage, Crusoe Fraser, and my partner and I 
made our three camps in line on a bank where 
I suppose camp-fires have been built for hun- 
dreds of years, for this easy portage over to the 
headwaters of the Mackenzie River system is a 
travel route long ante-dating the advent of the 
white man. An easy six miles divides the 
waters that empty respectively into the Arctic 
and the Pacific oceans. 

After supper from one of the cabins came a 



88 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

stout and dejected old woman waving a little 
branch of leaves around her head like a talis- 
man to ward off the mosquitoes. She took up 
her stand in front of Crusoe Fraser's fire and 
heavily accused him of the theft of a suit of 
clothes. He readily defended himself with an 
air by turn deferential and insolent. It was 
more glib than convincing. Nothing came of 
the long wrangle that followed. This was the 
only charge of theft that we ever heard made in 
the North. We all felt personally outraged as 
if it were our suit of clothes that had been stolen, 
and it was easy to understand how men are 
tempted to take the law into their own hands. 

It transpired that the storekeepers at Giscomb 
kept a team for the purpose of transporting out- 
fits across the portage. They were outrageous 
brigands, the pair of them, and even now my 
choler rises hotly at the recollection of the 
twenty cents a pound they forced us to pay for 
sugar and the dollar and a half for a tin of cocoa 
that we coveted. Ten dollars was asked to carry 
our sixty-pound boat and two hundred pounds 
of baggage for six miles. As they carried a 
three-hundred pound bell at the same time, we 
compromised at seven. On the way over the 
driver somehow managed to pierce a hole in the 
canvas skin of the Blunderbuss, which he art- 



THE LILLIPUT RIFER 89 

fully plugged with a lump of tar, so that we did 
not discover it until it was too late to call him 
to account. 

It is interesting to remark in regard to the big 
bell I speak of, that the Indians around Fort 
Macleod, who were reputed to be starving, had 
subscribed four hundred dollars for it. It had 
already been two years on the way and is quite 
likely still lying on the shore of Summit Lake. 
The priest could not reach the little church in 
which it was to be hung more than two or three 
times in the year. 

Another white man joined us next morning. 
This was Bower, a fine, upstanding riverman 
who had undertaken the difficult contract of de- 
livering a bargeload of supplies to a surveyor 
at work in the Rocky Mountain canyon. He 
had built his barge on the shore of Summit Lake, 
and now came over the portage looking for help 
to navigate it. This provided Savage with an 
opportunity to make his way through the coun- 
try, and he gladly shipped with him. Bower 
likewise secured one of the young fellows off the 
raft. We all walked*back over the portage to- 
gether, exchanging yarns of the trails. 

Arriving at the lake the weather became 
threatening, and my partner and I yielded to the 
warm invitation of our new friends to stay over 



90 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

in their camp. We were well entertained. 
Bower enjoyed the services of a first-rate cook. 
We often remarked that the camp-cooks of the 
North constitute a race apart. The conscious- 
ness of the effeminacy of their calling in the eyes 
of other men usually gives them an extra trucu- 
lent air. They are hard to get along with as 
everybody knows. But the jolly cooky at Sum- 
mit Lake was thoroughly human. He threw to- 
gether the materials of his culinary successes 
with a delightful nonchalance, holding forth 
meanwhile as uninterruptedly as his pot of beans 
simmering over the fire. His bannock with rai- 
sins was something to dream about. 

The remaining member of Bower's party was 
Bob, a Fraser Lake Indian who had incapaci- 
tated himself by laying open his knee with a 
misdirected stroke of his big knife. His rem- 
edy was balsam gum, which he applied to the 
wound after a thorough chewing. Bob, like all 
his tribe, was wonderfully clever with his hands. 
Out of a tin can, a bit of wire, a red feather, and 
a length of string he made us a trolling spoon 
which answered its purpose very well. The 
chief of the Fraser Lake Indians, having seen a 
steamboat for the first time, instantly contrived 
a pair of paddle wheels for his canoe, and there- 
after forced his henchmen to turn him about the 
lake. 



THE LILLIPUT RIVER 91 

Summit Lake was a pretty little body of water 
bearing several islands on its bosom quaintly 
like spring millinery. The sandy beach served 
for a rim of straw, a circlet of willow bushes for 
a band of velvet around the crown, and a clump 
of jackpines sticking up in the middle for 
feathers. This was the beginning of the Peace 
River water that was to carry us down for a 
thousand miles. The Peace has much the same 
relation to the Mackenzie that the Missouri 
bears to the Mississippi. With its sister stream, 
the Liard, it has this distinction among the rivers 
of America, they rise west of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, and force their way back through the main 
chain. To see the Peace River pass was, as 
I have mentioned, one of the main objects of our 
expedition. 

At noon on the following day, after bidding 
farewell to our friends with genuine regret on 
both sides, we embarked on the next stage of the 
journey. It is always astonishing to city-folk 
what intimacy of friendliness may be engen- 
dered by a single night in camp. After travers- 
ing the six miles of the lake we entered the 
Crooked River, which we immediately re-chris- 
tened the Lilliput. As for ourselves, we were 
the Gullivers. Surely there never was so little 
a stream that served as a highway of commerce. 
In places it was no more than four feet wide, 



92 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

and the Blunderbuss was as much out of pro- 
portion in it, as the Mauretania might be in the 
Erie Canal. How Bower ever expected to 
bring his barge down after us we could not un- 
derstand. 

It was comically like the Fraser in miniature 
with its little rapids, its endless sharp bends, and 
its densely wooded overhanging banks — but here 
low willow bushes took the place of towering 
spruces. The branches whipped our faces as 
we snaked around the corkscrew turns. Gener- 
ations of previous navigators have rolled the 
largest stones out of the bed, leaving a narrow 
channel that called for sharp work on the part 
of the pilot. Each bend called for an instan- 
taneous decision. It was like playing a child's 
game of shooting the rapids. The water was 
never more than a foot or so deep, and when we 
got out of the track, we merely stepped out and 
floated her back. The boat that preceded us 
down the river was painted red as testified by the 
decorations on the largest stones. The Blunder- 
buss in passing left some green smudges by way 
of contrast. 

It is difficult to convey the intimate charm of 
that lively little stream. We remember it as the 
sweetest part of the long journey. It always be- 
haved unexpectedly. It had a thousand pretty 




A row of log shacks ciazily thntched wilh strips of bark 




The still, black pools . . . crowded with fish 



THE LILLIPUT RIVER 93 

tricks to play, with its brawling rapids, its still 
black pools, its steep wooded banks, and its sunny- 
little meadows. The water was of a clear am- 
ber color and literally crowded with fish. When 
the Crooked River becomes accessible to the out- 
side world, it cannot help but be pre-eminent 
among famous trout streams. 

Near the point where the river leaves the lake 
stands a little eminence known as Tea-pot 
Mountain from its odd shape. Such is the 
crookedness of the Crooked River that the 
traveler in descending it views that moun- 
tain from every side and goes for a whole 
day without apparently distancing it. On the 
second day he loses it. On the third day 
it bobs up again, seemingly as near as ever. 
This gave rise to something of a mystery in this 
unsurveyed country, and indeed witchcraft was 
suspected, until Bower finally climbed another 
little height in the neighborhood, and discovered 
two Tea-pot mountains almost identical in con- 
tour. Since when they have changed the name 
of the second one to Cofifee-pot Mountain. 

The second day on the river, Sunday, July 
22d, is written down in our notebook as a ban- 
ner day. We had found a particularly fine site 
for our camp the night before. The tent was 
pitched under spruce trees on top of a steep lit- 



94 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

tie bank, and we awoke in the morning to look 
up the river, sparkling as it dimpled over the 
stones like strings of diamonds shaken in the sun- 
shine. We breakfasted off fried trout. Later, 
while my partner was washing dishes below, he 
attracted my attention with a soft hist! and look- 
ing up-stream I saw a magnificent bull moose 
splashing unconcernedly down the middle of the 
stream. 

We kept as still as mice, and he approached 
to within a few yards of our camp before mak- 
ing the discovery. Then he stopped and for a 
long second looked us over steadily, as we were 
looking at him. His antlers, half-grown at this 
season, were in velvet. He made a noble and 
fitting picture against the background of woods 
and water. Unfortunately the sun was squarely 
at his back, and a snap-shot was out of the ques- 
tion, even if I could have reached for the cam- 
era. We had plenty of meat and felt no mur- 
derous promptings. It was satisfaction enough 
just to see him there in the place where he be- 
longed. When it broke upon him that we were 
alive, he swung about and dashed off up-stream. 

Every foot of the river was a delight that day. 
We flew down the little rapids, dragging our 
paddles over the stones for a brake. Along the 
shores we picked out the tracks of nearly every 



THE LILLIPUT RIVER 95 

wild animal that inhabits the North. We 
counted ten bald eagles sailing and joyously 
screaming in the sunny upper air. Anxious 
mother ducks hid their broods among the reeds 
as we approached, or wildly sought to distract 
our attention with an alleged broken wing. 
The puffball ducklings amused us greatly. 
Sometimes they got separated from mamma, and 
scattered on the face of the river. They had 
only one trick in their little bags, to dive, and 
they gamely played it over and over to the point 
of exhaustion. 

We were softly floating with the current when 
we heard a great puffing and grunting in the tall 
grass above our heads, as it might be of a fat 
man unwillingly getting out of bed in the morn- 
ing. We came about in the stream, and clung 
to some bushes below, praying that he might be 
inclined to come down for a drink. He sounded 
as if he had a dark brown taste in his mouth. I 
got the camera ready. 

Suddenly through the grass not ten feet from 
my partner, so near he could have reached over 
and cracked him with his paddle, stuck the head 
of a big brown bear. It looked as big as a but- 
ter-tub to us. His breath was almost in our 
faces. He regarded us with the most comical 
expression of astonishment on his stupid, good- 



96 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

natured phiz, and then with a blast of indignant 
protest he was gone. I delayed a second too 
long with the camera. I hoped to get him en- 
tire, or even a shoulder with the head, and I got 
nothing at all. For minutes afterwards we 
heard him woofing and crashing away through 
the bushes. Indeed Mr. Bear must have re- 
ceived the shock of his life. 




We met tliree Indians aiul a dog coming'up stream 




A gaunt, raw-looking stream continually eating under its banks 



CHAPTER VII 

THE SAPPHIRE CHAIN 

THIS part of the journey is closely associ- 
ated in our minds with our friend Mount- 
joy. I call him Mountjoy because it is 
nCt his name. I think it probable that he has 
now found other fields of endeavor, and I have 
no desire to injure him. He was a very agree- 
able man, and the joke is well worth the trifling 
sum it cost us. 

We were introduced to Mountjoy in Edmon- 
ton. We thought that the man who did the in- 
troducing knew him well, but it subsequently 
transpired that Mountjoy was a mere chance 
acquaintance of the street. Mountjoy was an 
exceedingly handsome man, tall, slender, and 
blonde, and he had moreover a manly, modest, 
deprecating manner that was very engaging. 
He was one of those well-bred Englishmen so 
common in Canadian frontier towns whose 
means of livelihood is mysterious. But perhaps 
when this story is told it will not be so myste- 
rious. 

97 



98 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

Mountjoy's attraction for us was his apparent 
knowledge of the country we were about to tra- 
verse, that is to say, the Crooked River part of 
the journey, which he said he had been over a 
dozen times. He spent the greatest part of a 
day with us in Edmonton, telling us all he knew 
and drawing several painstaking maps with full 
directions upon them. 

He went on to confide in us that he was think- 
ing of setting up a bureau of information for 
travelers and landseekers in the North, and in 
his modest way he asked our advice as to what 
he ought to charge. We agreed with him that a 
consultation fee of five dollars was not exor- 
bitant. 

Oh! we fell for it beautifully I Knowing the 
weaknesses of humankind in general and tender- 
feet in particular, Mountjoy exaggerated the 
dangers of the journey, with many a side-glance 
at our nerve in undertaking it. The inference 
was that if we had not met him — etc., etc. He 
also introduced us to several randy old pioneers 
with whom he had a barroom acquaintance, the 
kind of sports that youngsters are always tickled 
to be seen with. And still I did not smell a rati 

I began to be concerned as to how we should 
repay him for all his trouble. He made no se- 
cret of how hard up he was, and I wanted to 



THE SAPPHIRE CHARM 99 

give him a five-spot, but I was afraid of insulting 
the decent, gentlemanly fellow. I blush now at 
the recollection of my innocence. I finally said 
in great embarrassment that I hoped he would 
allow us to be his first clients, etc. He almost 
jumped down my throat, and immediately 
pulled me into a doorway that the exchange 
might be effected. I began to be sore then to 
think of the anxious concern I had wasted on 
him. 

Now, weeks afterward, when we began to con- 
sult Mountjoy's map the real point of the joke 
transpired. He had probably been into the 
country because he knew the names of the lakes, 
the rivers, the rapids., etc. But that was all. 
However, In the end the map was really of some 
service to us, because after it had led us astray 
on the lakes once or twice, and we had paddled 
into deep bays only to find that we had to paddle 
out again, we adopted the rule of doing the ex- 
act opposite to what the map directed and then 
we were all right I 

To return to the account of the banner day: 
as if it feared of tiring us with river scenery, 
by and by the stream obligingly opened into a 
lovely little lake, the first of a series like sap- 
phires set in a silver chain. Surely never shone 
anything so blue and so bright under the noon 



loo NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

sun, or ruffled itself so prettily under a westerly 
breeze. By way of compensation I suppose, 
there is a Heavenly quality in the summer sun- 
light of the North, that by comparison makes 
the best efforts of a more torrid sun look dull. 
To us after the shadowy river it was veritably 
intoxicating. The water of these lakes was 
fairly warm, and we enjoyed several swims. We 
trolled for and caught the fine salmon trout that 
the Indians call sapi. Its pink flesh makes deli- 
cate feasting. There were large flocks of duck 
and geese, and many loons with their mocking 
laughter. 

The first lake was McKay Lake. As we were 
nearing the other end, suddenly, with a strange, 
dull roar, a monster spruce tree on the shore be- 
hind us sprang complete into flame. It was a 
startling and magnificent sight, a pillar of scarlet 
fire in the broad daylight, wreathed in a pall of 
thick yellow smoke. We were thankful that we 
had built no fire in that neighborhood. We 
supposed that it was due to some neglected In- 
dian camp-fire, that had perhaps been smolder- 
ing for days at the tree's root. 

Another stretch of the river followed and we 
camped near Davies Lake, the second sheet of 
water large enough to have a name to itself. 
As we were baking bread and frying sapi steaks. 



THE SAPPHIRE CHARM loi 

our camp received two canoe-loads of visitors, 
who made them a fire of their own near ours, 
and sat themselves down as if to spend the night. 
We had been warned by Bower that the Indians 
of this neighborhood were apt to be of the 
" strong-arm " type, that is to say, saucy beg- 
gars, and we continued about our work and to 
our supper with a rigidly non-committal air. 
They were a poor-looking lot in their ragged 
store clothes. They watched our every move- 
ment with eyes as hard and bright as sloe-berries. 
One pounced eagerly on the head of the fish 
that we had thrown away, but this was merely 
a beggar's trick, for he dropped it presently 
when he thought no one was looking. 

The principal one among them had a few 
words of English that he employed in asking for 
things obliquely. "Wah! Bread, fish, meat, 
tea, you got everyt'ing," he said with a fawning 
air. " Me got not'ing. No kill, one, two, t'ree 
day. No catch some fish. All people ongry 
and sick. You see anyt'ing on the river?" 

" Plenty of geese," I said. 

"Wahl" he said. "Me no see. Me bad 
luck. No get somet'ing never." 

We could hardly sit there gorging ourselves 
while they squatted by the fire empty-handed, 
so we handed over what was left of the roast 



102 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

moose meat. They took it eagerly, thinking it 
was beef, which they prize above all other foods 
simply because it is hard to get. 

Finally having exhausted everything else our 
friends concentrated on salt, of which we had 
a small part of a bag. 

" You sell me? " he asked, pointing to it. 

I shook my head. 

*' No salt," he said pathetically. " Grub taste 
bad. Make sick. You get plenty more at the 
Fort." 

As I had a strong suspicion that the Indians 
ordinarily get along very well without salt, I 
hardened my heart, and it was well that I did. 

The piping of a brood of goslings on the river 
threw the whole party into a state of excitement. 
They imitated the sound marvelously well, and 
the little birds drew near. Then, although it 
was practically dark, a great banging of guns 
took place. Finally the principal beggar 
snatched a gun and embarked in a canoe, as much 
as to say he would show us. More banging fol- 
lowed, interspersed with excited jabbering. At 
least a dollar's worth of ammunition was wasted 
on the fledglings, and then they didn't get any. 
Such is the noble red man of this generation! 
We were much relieved when they finally pad- 
dled away. Before leaving they extracted a 
promise from us to stop at their camp next day, 



THE SAPPHIRE CHARM 103 

a promise that we made with a mental reserva- 
tion. 

Crossing Davies Lake next day we had a 
breeze in our favor, and we rigged the Blunder- 
buss with a poplar pole and a tarpaulin. With 
all the trouble of putting it up and taking it 
down again, we probably lost time, but it kept 
us amused and has furnished a pretty picture. 
At dusk we made Macleod Lake, the largest of 
the series. The map we were using instead of 
Mountjoy's, gave it as twenty-two miles long, 
but sixteen would be nearer the mark. This 
map was made by a famous missionary among 
the Indians. He is a better missionary than a 
map-maker. The shores of this end of the lake 
were swampy, and we were hard put to it to find 
a dry sleeping-place. We decided finally to 
head for an island or point that we could barely 
distinguish through the gloom, some seven miles 
ahead. 

It was a squally evening. Off to the southeast 
there was a thunderstorm and the piled masses 
of cloud in that quarter of the Heavens made 
sublime effects in the reflected light of the west, 
long after the lower world was in darkness. 
There is an invincible charm in paddling wide 
waters at night, with the wind on one's cheek 
and the waves slapping the bow. It became 
very dark, but there is always light enough be- 



104 ^^^^ RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

tween water and sky to steer by. Finally the 
stars came out overhead and we rejoiced. No 
lover ever watched his dear one's face for 
threatening signs more anxiously than we were 
accustomed to study the sky. 

We reached the point at last to find that it 
provided but a stony bed for weary bones. We 
dug a hole and cast ourselves in It, defying the 
mosquitoes. It was of no avail, though, they 
routed us up in a bitter temper, half-dead with 
unsatisfied sleep. We slung the tent anyhow 
and crawled under the cheesecloth. 

In the morning the wind was against us and 
the lake rough. Progress was very slow, and 
we decided to lay oflf for a couple of hours in 
the middle of the day. Stretched in soft grass 
on the shore, warmed by the generous sun, and 
blown upon by the piping breeze, we slept deli- 
ciously. Continuing later, around the very next 
bend we were astonished to discover Fort Mac- 
leod, with its little white store and the invariable 
flagpole. From the map we had supposed it 
still ten miles away. Crossing the last rough 
reach of the lake, a paddle snapped short that we 
could ill aflord to lose. 

Our reception upon landing below the fort 
was not encouraging. Two Indians scowled at 
us and turned away. Under a tent we found 



THE SAPPHIRE CHARM 105 

a white man who was not much more hospitable. 
This poor wretch had been at the mercy of the 
black flies for weeks, and his face was not a 
pretty sight. The moral of which is; travel by 
water in the fly season. He was waiting, he told 
us, for his partner to join him. They were trav- 
eling with pack ponies overland to the Peace, 
by way of the Pine pass. 

When we asked for the trader he shook his 
head. " Gone away," he said ; whereat my part- 
ner and I looked at each other with falling faces. 
This was the place where we had counted on 
refilling our grub-box. 

" There is not a pound of flour or bacon in the 
place," continued our informant gloomily. 
" The shelves of the store are empty. The In- 
dians are starving. The trader has gone to Fort 
St. James, eighty-five miles west, to see if he can 
get anything. But they're out of grub too." 

We anxiously debated what to do. We were 
reduced to a few pounds of flour, a little rice, 
and half a side of bacon. The trader might re- 
turn any day, but it was hardly advisable to hang 
around eating up what little we had, on the very 
slim chance of his bringing something from Fort 
St. James. The next post on our route was Fort 
St. John, over three hundred miles away. 
There was a chance that we might get something 



io6 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

from the surveyor at Rocky Mountain canyon, 
five days journey. On the whole there seemed 
to be nothing to do but pull in our belts and 
make a dash for it. 

Before embarking we explored the Indian vil- 
lage at Macleod, a row of log shacks crazily 
thatched with wide strips of bark, and a tiny 
church with a belfry like a bird-house on stilts, 
waiting for that big bell. The Indians of this 
place are Sikannis, a tribe which has been given 
an unsavory reputation by the early travelers. 
There were but few men about. That the peo- 
ple were starving hardly appeared from their 
faces, and at least the lake and the river were 
swarming with fish, but the men consider fishing 
an occupation unworthy of them. 

Of those who had scowled at us on landing, 
one was a good-looking young bravo, quite a 
dandy in his new blue gingham shirt, red sash, 
silk-worked moccasins, and stiff-brimmed hat 
cocked rakishly askew. In response to our re- 
quests for information about the river below his 
invariable answer was: "Pack Liver plenty 
bad." He could not or he would not particular- 
ize the badness. No doubt he would have con- 
descended to act as our guide down " Pack 
Liver " for two dollars a day and all he could 
eat, but we hardly saw it. 



THE SAPPHIRE CHARM 107 

In front of one of the shacks we found a highly 
picturesque group of women and girls busily 
working, all having bright-colored kerchiefs 
bound round their heads. The favorite Indian 
color is a particularly raw shade of cerise. The 
moment the camera was produced from its case, 
they fled into the house of one accord, slam- 
ming the door after them. They took turns 
peeking at us through the crack, but not all our 
smiles or inviting words could draw them forth 
again. Finally two half-grown boys proved 
their manhood by marching up to within twenty 
feet of the terrible camera. Nearer they could 
not be tempted. 

Fort Macleod with its empty store, its scow- 
ling savages, and its fly-bitten white man was 
a dreary place that we were glad to put behind 
us. We camped at the head of a rapid, three 
miles below. The Pack River, which empties 
into Lake Macleod, is the same stream as the 
Crooked River on a little larger scale. The 
dangerous rapids we had been warned of proved 
to be of no great account. There was another 
little lake to cross next day, Trout Lake, where 
we took a wrong turn and lost ourselves for 
about an hour in a beautiful, winding, shallow 
arm. 

Late that afternoon the " character of the 



io8 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

country began to change" again. The steep, 
pine-clad banks gave place to wide bottoms cov- 
ered with great cotton-wood trees, and presently 
we were swept out on the bosom of another great 
river, the Parsnip, so-called from the familiar 
wild-flower that grows in great profusion along 
its banks. 
X, We entered it on a wide, semi-circular bend. 
Tt was nearly as large as the Fraser and swifter. 
The Blunderbuss was carried down at a surpris- 
ing speed, and we had not gone half a mile be- 
fore we were well wetted in a rapid. It was a 
gaunt, raw-looking stream, continually eating 
under its banks and spreading great bare sand- 
bars between. Everywhere we saw the ugly 
scars of its rage in a freshet. The water was of 
a peculiar cloudy green color, and in the swifter 
places a soft, hissing sound rose from it. We 
had many a discussion as to the cause of this ex- 
traordinary sound, but I think my partner's ex- 
planation will be the correct one; that it was 
caused by the little stones rolling down the bed 
of the river under the water. 

There was something intimidating about the 
Parsnip. Besides being an ugly-looking stream 
and of a headlong current, it was a part of the 
route about which we had no information, and 
the map was a blank. We had about a hundred 
and fifty miles of it to descend. There was not. 



THE SAPPHIRE CHARM 109 

of course, a habitation of any kind throughout 
the length of it, and what we could see of the 
country looked desolate. The comfortable 
world of our fellow-creatures began to seem very 
far away indeed, and for the first time a sense of 
loneliness bore upon us. 

We saw several bears along the banks, but as 
the gun had to be kept tucked away to escape 
a wetting in the frequent small rapids, my part- 
ner did not get a shot. On the second day we 
met three Indians and a dog coming up-stream. 
Conversation was difficult. The thing about us 
that impressed them the most was our bare feet, 
in which they seemed to see something humor- 
ously indecent. 

That night we made our camp in a dreary spot 
on top of a cut bank in the middle of a wide 
space that had been burned over. We chose the 
place hoping in the absence of underbrush to es- 
cape the mosquitoes, but they were never worse. 
Supper was cooked on the stones of the shore be- 
low. We were finally obliged to crawl up the 
bank with it, and thrusting it under the mosquito 
bar, to eat inside. We were glad to roll up in 
our blankets. The silence and the emptiness of 
this remote corner of the world oppressed our 
imaginations. As we lay waiting for sleep a 
strange bird regularly cleft the silence with a 
single, dull mournful note. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE MOUNTAIN OF GOLD 

THE gloomy fancies of might on the Parsnip 
River were effectually dissipated by the 
morning sun. It was the first and last 
time that we were at all troubled by a sense of 
our solitariness. The third day on the river we 
made first-rate progress with the current. That 
day the uneasy stream lost itself in the net-work 
of channels it had dug, and we could never be 
sure if we were in the main stream or about to 
run dry in an abandoned " snye." 

With the approach of the afternoon the moun- 
tains began to rise close and high on our right 
hand, and we knew that the forks of the Peace 
must be near. The Parsnip flows almost due 
north, and the Finlay comes down from the 
north in the same valley. They collide head on 
as it were, and swing off at right angles through 
the pass. That is the point where the Peace 
River officially starts. 

We reached the meeting of the waters at sun- 
set. The two streams were of nearly equal vol- 

110 



THE MOUNTAIN OF GOLD iii, 

ume, and it appeared that they ceaselessly con- 
tended for the channel with varying success. 
On this day the Finlay was in flood and held 
possession. Its darker current shouldered the 
Parsnip out of the way and backed up its waters 
for several miles. The line of division was as 
clear cut as that between land and water. When 
the Blunderbuss, proceeding through the still 
water, poked her nose into the edge of the cur- 
rent, she spun about and almost rolled over 
under the impact. 

We camped on a wide sand-bar at the point of 
junction. Cooking and eating amidst a waste of 
fine sand has its disadvantages, but there was 
not a bush nor a tree within a quarter of a mile, 
hence, we hoped, no mosquitoes. It was a vain 
hope; they gathered from afar with a glad sing- 
ing. Again we retreated under the cheesecloth 
with our supper, making occasional swift sorties 
for hot cocoa. Anybody within telephone com- 
munication of a store would have smiled at the 
way we measured out our cocoa, pinch by pinch, 
and turned up our eyes and smacked our lips as 
we drank it. Bread and bacon and rice were very 
good in their way, but cocoa was the only luxury 
we had. 

Half a mile below our camp we could hear 
the dull roar of the Finlay rapids which filled us 



112 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

with a kind of pleasant foreboding for the next 
day. In the morning when we took to the cur- 
rent, we examined the approach anxiously. 
We had as usual collected a variety of informa- 
tion. Some had said we might easily shoot these 
rapids, others had foretold a watery grave if we 
tried it. Some had directed us to keep to the 
southerly bank, while others with equal assur- 
ance had recommended the other. 

The course of the current indicated that the 
deepest water would be found close to the right 
hand or southern bank, and we accordingly hug- 
ged that shore. It fortunately proved to be the 
proper course. We landed at the head of the 
rapid to look it over. The photograph we took 
from this point shows the general outlook. We 
had descended places as bad in the Fraser, and 
could no doubt have safely weathered it, but 
when we considered our precious few pounds 
of grub and the hundreds of miles that separated 
us from a fresh supply, we chose the course of 
prudence and decided to carry around. 

There was a well-worn portage trail, and the 
carry was short, inasmuch as an accommodating 
back-water swept up behind the point of rocks 
shown in the picture. We put the Blunderbuss 
in that and paddled down through smooth water 
to the foot of the rapids. The camera with all 




A strange, troubled sea of mountain peaks . 
papier mache decoration 



. like a fantastic 




Mount Selwyn — The Mountain of Gold — from up the River 



THE MOUNTAIN OF GOLD 113 

its llteralness is frequently a liar in effect. How- 
ever, in this case no word description of the Fin- 
lay rapids is necessary, because it is faithfully 
represented in the picture. It was a beautiful 
sight. 

Below the rapids the river widened into the 
majestic proportions we expected of the Peace. 
We swept around a great bend, and the gateway 
of the Rockies lay immediately before us. We 
welcomed the mountains like old friends. It 
was a superb sight, and our exclamations of won- 
der and delight sounded feeble in our own ears. 
There was nothing of the terrible in it, as of a 
dark cleft or gorge; the mountains seemed to 
draw courteously back on either hand, and 
through the royal avenue they opened, the river 
moved graciously and unhurried. " Noble " 
was the word that continually recurred to us. 
The wide green river fringed with pines had an 
unspeakably noble air; the mighty, flung-up 
rock masses were no less noble. 

The first great eminence on the right is Mount 
Selwyn. We had eagerly looked forward to the 
sight of it, first on account of its reputed mag- 
nificence which caused the matter-of-fact report 
of the original survey to burst into eloquence; 
secondly because of the romantic name it has 
since acquired. Throughout the north, Selwyn 



114 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

is known as the mountain of gold. The lesser 
height that buttresses its base so far as it has been 
explored is entirely composed of metal-bearing 
quartz. 

Mount Selwyn is 6,200 feet high, which in 
figures is nothing to speak of in comparison with 
the monarchs of the Yellowhead pass that we 
had dofTfed our hats to. But the pass itself here 
is fifteen hundred feet lower. Selwyn is of a 
very distinguished and beautiful contour, and it 
rises sheer from the water, revealing itself 
wholly to the view with an effect of grandeur 
equal to peaks of twice its size. We photo- 
graphed it from up the river as it first comes into 
view, and again from the other side. Neither 
picture does it justice. 

From the beginning of the trip we had been 
promising ourselves a try for the summit of 
Mount Selwyn, and now even though we had 
such need to hurry we could not bear to give up 
the plan. So we decided to devote the next day 
to it. Without difficulty we found the regular 
camping-place with poles and bail-hooks ready 
to our hand. It was one of the best-chosen spots 
on the river. A brawling mountain stream, fed 
by the snows of Selwyn and famous for its arctic 
trout, emptied into the Peace beside us. 

From our camp an old trail led inland and 



THE MOUNTAIN OF GOLD 115 

this we followed next day. It presently brought 
us to an interesting and melancholy memento of 
a former expedition to Mount Selwyn. This 
was a log shack with the roof fallen in and the 
contents rotting and rusted with the damp. 
There was the bed on which they had slept fif- 
teen years before, with the remains of the spruce 
boughs that had been their mattresses. There 
were the little furnaces falling to pieces, the 
melting pots, and the porcelain molds, and there 
were many moldy sticks of dynamite that we 
handled gingerly. It looked like the erbswurst, 
out of which we made soup on high days and 
holidays. 

Beyond the hut the trail began to climb, and it 
brought us in turn to all the little excavations 
they had made in the mountain side. The clean 
splintered rock lay about as if the blasts had been 
set off but the day before, and we saw more than 
one hammer that had been carelessly dropped at 
the end of the day's work, never to be picked up 
again. At intervals we came to square posts 
driven into the earth, with inscriptions in lead 
pencil to the effect that so-and-so hereby gave 
notice of his intention to file a claim, etc., etc., 
with dates thirteen years old and upwards. 
Many of the pencil marks were astonishingly 
fresh. It is said that every foot of the lower 



ii6 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

slopes of Selwyn has been claimed and re- 
claimed. Some day when transportation be- 
comes feasible, no doubt there will be a great 
battle fought for possession of the mountain of 
gold. 

The trail ended at the last excavation, and 
thereafter we had to push our own way through 
a dense poplar coppice. But it is easy to climb 
a mountain ; all you have to do is to plant each 
step higher than the one before, and you're 
bound to arrive at the summit at last. We were 
looking for the mountain goat trail described 
in the report of the first surveyor, and in the end 
we found it. It led us, except for a few places 
where not having the prehensile front hoofs of 
haploceros montanus, or his nerve, we had to go 
round, direct to the summit. 

To an experienced Alpinist no doubt Selwyn 
would have been mere child's play, but we whose 
first adventure it was above the snow-line found 
it sufficiently exciting. We dug our fingers and 
toes into the face of little precipices, not daring 
to look behind us. We crawled carefully over 
steep rock slides, wondering casually what we 
would look like at the bottom if a slide happened 
to take place just then. We crept around the 
edge of an awful gorge with our internal organs 
slowly rising into our throats. 




Mt. Selwyn from the Down River side 




We had no idea how she would behave on the end of a string 



THE MOUNTAIN OF GOLD 117 

The upper slopes have been largely burned 
over long ago, and getting over the bleached, 
fallen trunks was like climbing hundreds of 
tangled fences. By and by we got above the 
timber. The side of the mountain we went up, 
which is the side shown in the first picture, con- 
sists of about six little peaks, one above the other. 
Toiling up, we hailed each one of these as the 
actual summit, only to find an ever higher point 
behind it. The whole mountain was starred 
with flowers, many of them strange to us, and all 
delicately beautiful. As we approached the 
summit a pair of ptarmigan in black and white 
dresses hovered in front of us, positively refusing 
to be driven away by stones. We quenched our 
thirst by eating snow. 

The apparent summit is the overhanging cliff 
of dentated rocks that shows clearly in the second 
picture. The actual summit is a blunt rounded 
cone lying behind it. It was like the roof of a 
medieval castle with two turrets connected by a 
battlement. We reached it at one o'clock. The 
view took our breath away. It was as if the 
whole world was spread before us, an empty 
world without a human sign. 

At our feet lay the Peace River, nearly a mile 
below. To the left was the wide, misty valley 
of the Finlay, bounded far away by the snow- 



ii8 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

capped Omineca range. Beginning at that point 
and turning three quarters of the way round the 
horizon, there lay below us a strange, troubled 
sea of mountain peaks. Peaks, peaks, peaks 
thrust up in reckless disorder. It was like a 
fantastic papier mache decoration. Deep be- 
tween some of the nearer heights we had glimpses 
of wild and beautiful valleys probably never 
trodden by man. Hidden in a bowl behind 
Mount Selwyn was a jewel of a lake that was 
neither sapphire or emerald, but more vivid than 
either. 

I confess that on the summit of Mount Selwyn 
I felt more comfortable sitting down. I had not 
the impulse to cast myself over the brink that I 
believe is usual with inexperienced climbers, but 
I had the no less uncomfortable impression that 
the mountain itself was unsteady on its base and 
likely to topple over before we could get down. 
It was too airy a perch to be compatible with any 
feeling of security. If a good strong gust of 
wind happened to come along, there was nothing 
to grab hold of but each other. 

However, we found comfortable hollows for 
our backs out of the wind, and there we lay eat- 
ing our lunch. Beautiful red, yellow, and green 
mosses filled the interstices. Moss made a grate- 
ful footing to moccasined feet after the sharp 



THE MOUNTAIN OF GOLD 119 

stones. The lunch consisted of a few lumps of 
stale bannock that we had stuffed in our pockets 
and some pieces of chocolate fudge that my 
partner was adept in making. I had lost most 
of my pieces to him on the way up, in bets as to 
the summit, but he magnanimously returned 
them to be repaid out of the next lot to be made. 

Then we took our pictures and started down. 
We anticipated a swift and easy descent, but 
Destiny ordered otherwise. Where there is only 
one way to go up a mountain, and that is up, 
there is the whole compass to choose from com- 
ing down. As long as we were on the bare 
upper slopes with the world spread beneath us 
the way was clear, though too much speed was 
slowest in the end as we found when I twisted 
a leg between a boulder and a fallen tree trunk. 
Coming down it was amusing to roll big stones 
out of their niches and watch them leap and 
plunge like mad elves down the steep into the 
river. We could not help thinking with a catch 
in the breath, of how we would go down our- 
selves if we got a good start. 

It was upon reaching the growing timber that 
we became confused. We lost the faintly- 
marked trail, found it, and lost it again. It ap- 
peared there were a score of aimless tracks cross- 
ing and recrossing on the mountain side. Finally 



I20 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

we went hopelessly astray In a primeval forest 
without tracks of any kind. None but those who 
have tried to make their way through ancient 
timber on a steep slope can picture the difficul- 
ties. Gigantic fallen trunks barred the way in 
every direction, or made precarious bridges that 
landed us nowhere. Often the apparently sound 
logs collapsed into powder under our feet. 
Lovely green mosses concealed treacherous crev- 
ices into which we dropped thigh deep. And 
I had a rapidly stiffening leg. 

The only thing we had to guide us was the 
sound of the brawling stream that we knew emp- 
tied beside our camp. In the course of time we 
reached its banks. Here was a tremendous 
tangle of drift logs brought down by the freshets. 
We made our slow way by the course of the 
stream, expecting to find camp nearby, but to 
our astonishment the journey lengthened into 
hours without any sign of the river appearing. 
It seemed as if there must be bad medicine in it. 
How we could ever have strayed so far up that 
valley is still a mystery. We must have been 
six miles out of our way. It was half past nine 
before we made camp. Except for half an hour 
at the summit we had been on the go since eight 
that morning. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE BIG CANYON 

DURING the whole of the following day 
we were traveling through magnificent 
mountain scenery. Unhappily the finest 
peaks lay to the south of the river, where the sun 
shone directly in the camera's eye. For the most 
part the river was smooth, and to one traveling 
with it the current was deceptive. We were as- 
tonished when we had occasion to land at the rate 
at which the green flood came sweeping down. 
There were narrow places where she carried 
the Blunderbuss through like an automobile. 
We looked over our shoulders and lo! the place 
we had just passed was a quarter of a mile astern. 
There were some ugly-looking reefs and rapids, 
but none that extended all the way across the 
river. 

The current must have averaged seven miles 
an hour, for our ordinary paddling rate with 
the clumsy Blunderbuss in slack water was only 
three, yet after four hours work we hove in sight 

121 



122 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

of the Parlez Pas rapids, which are said to be 
forty miles from Selwyn. These are considered 
worse than the Finlay rapids. The name is 
misapplied, for while we were yet two miles 
away the " speak " of the rapids was sufficient 
to accelerate the beating of our hearts. We had 
the same comfusion of directions here as to the 
channel. After the usual agony of indecision 
the pilot chose the right hand bank to land on. 
This rapid was in the middle of a long straight 
reach, and one side looked as good as the other. 
This was probably the wrong side; it was an 
ugly-looking place, broken with rocks and shal- 
lows. However, rather than go to the trouble 
of pulling up-stream and crossing over, we de- 
cided to make the best of it. 

Descending it ourselves was out of the ques- 
tion, so we decided to let the Blunderbuss over 
the first drop on a line, then to land her and carry 
over a wide projecting reef to the back-water be- 
low. To this end we tied together all the odd 
pieces of rope we possessed. We had no idea 
how she would behave on the end of a string. 
A great tree had partly fallen into the water 
right in our path, and we much feared for the 
conjunction of branches and knots in the rope. 

The camera has caught the Blunderbuss as she 
floated over the first drop. It was an anxious 



THE BIG CANYON 123 

moment. When she struck the white comber 
that appears to the right of the picture, there 
was not enough of her under water to carry her 
through it. Consequently the wave held her 
there, and swinging broadside, she almost rolled 
under before we succeeded in hauling her ashore. 
We had taken the precaution to keep out the few 
pounds of grub that remained to us. 

These operations, together with landing, un- 
loading, portaging and loading again all con- 
sumed a lot of time, and we made but ten miles 
farther that day. During the afternoon there 
were frequent cold squalls of rain that seemed 
to single us out for their malice. The sun was 
shining everywhere but where we were. 

On the next day the mountains began to flatten 
out and the valley to spread. The river pursued 
a tedious, roundabout course among wide, ex- 
posed bars. There is a fable in the country that 
any of these bars will pay a man's wages in gold. 

We had now passed through the main chain 
of the Rockies, though the great canyon still 
lay before us. Ever since the first white man 
saw it, it has been called Rocky Mountain can- 
yon, though the Rockies are fifty miles away. 
We looked for it eagerly. Like every great 
work of nature it has surrounded itself with an 
awful reputation. " For God's sake, don't get 



124 N^W RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

carried down I " everybody had said who knew 
the place, and we were prepared to drive the 
canoe into the bank at the slightest warning. 

As it turned out, however, there was no danger 
of mistaking the canyon. Long before we 
reached it, we saw a significant wall of rock 
blocking the river's course, and from under it 
issued an ominous hoarse roar none but the deaf 
could ignore. A little flag fluttering from a 
pole drew us to a landing a few hundred yards 
above the opening. It was the first sign of hu- 
man occupancy we had seen in many days. Be- 
hind it was a cache of poplar log^. This 
we guessed to be the surveyor's store and the 
flag a signal to guide our friend Bower who was 
somewhere behind us. 

We hastened over the rocks to look into the 
fearful hole that swallowed the river entire. 
The sight provided us our keenest thrill hitherto. 
The mighty river that filled a whole valley above 
here disappeared through an opening not more 
than seventy yards wide, and roared down out 
of sight between the walls below. It is an in- 
credible sight. They say the water has a rise 
and fall of fifty feet within the canyon, and 
certainly we saw great trees cast up on the rocks 
at least thirty feet above the present water level. 
Unfortunately we put off taking a picture of the 



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1 


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RSS^^^^^^^^^j^l 


1 


m' 




■^ "s 


i^^^H 






IHyk 


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Breasting the current like a pair of battleshifis 




No boat could have lived long in those torn waters 



THE BIG CANYON 125 

opening for more favorable light, and In the end 
it never was taken. The best picture we secured 
shows the canyon a short distance below the 
opening. 

The impressive feature is not the height of the 
walls, but the frightful force and volume of the 
torrent that sweeps through. In this respect the 
Peace River canyon suggests only the Whirlpool 
rapids below Niagara. We cast the biggest tree 
trunk we could move over the brink. It fell 
into a whirlpool, stood straight on end, and 
slowly disappeared. It did not reappear while 
we watched. Across the gorge there was a fis- 
sure in the rock into which another tree trunk 
had been horizontally driven up to the butt by 
the force of the current. The water had since 
gone down, and there it stuck like a nail driven 
into a board. 

The canyon is twenty-two miles long. No one 
has ever descended it alive, but there is a tra- 
dition that a party of Iroquois Indians in the 
" company's " employ once lined a boat up. 
The water must have been at a lower stage than 
we saw it. There was no footing then on the 
polished walls of the canyon, even for an Iro- 
quois. A few days before we saw it the sur- 
veyor had sent down an empty boat strongly 
braced with logs. Four hours later the watchers 



126 NElf RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

at the other end secured a small splintered piece 
of one side. 

Having satisfied our first curiosity concern- 
ing the canyon, we looked about for the fellow- 
creatures we expected to find in the vicinity. Be- 
sides the surveyor's party we had been told we 
would find Indians here from whom we might 
surely obtain horses for the portage. There 
were horse tracks around the cache no more 
than a day old, and we soon came upon the site 
of the surveyor's camp, but it was abandoned. 
Dividing forces then, we explored the river mea- 
dows and the bench far and wide. We found 
many tepee poles and the ashes of burnt-out fires, 
but the Indians had likewise moved on. 

We made camp on the site of the surveyor's es- 
tablishment and debated what to do. The situa- 
tion was not without its serious aspect. We 
were reduced to two pounds of flour and a few 
slices of bacon. We had a few cupfuls of rice 
besides, but the little bag of salt had been lost. 
Whereas the canyon is twenty-two miles long, 
the portage trail which cuts across a wide bend 
is only twelve, but even twelve miles loomed big 
before us. With the most strenuous endeavors 
it would take us three days to carry all our stufif 
across — and on two pounds of flour 1 The sum 
was hard to do. However, we recollected that 



THE BIG CANYON 127 

luck had always been with us so far, and we felt 
sure we would find the surveyor at the other end 
of the trail. We decided to take about forty 
pounds each and cross next morning; beg a little 
flour, and then come back for the rest of our stuff. 

The forty pounds seemed like nothing at all 
when we first hoisted it on our backs, and we set 
ofif gaily. But on the steep hills it became more 
like four hundred. I was further discommoded 
by my game leg, which did not trouble me much 
on the level, but set up a most convincing pain on 
every ascent. It was a hot and steamy day, and 
we perspired by the quart. However, the trail 
was first rate and in spite of our hindrances we 
made good time. 

We had gone about four miles when we were 
suddenly brought up all standing by the tinkle of 
a horse bell from ahead. It sounded too good 
to be true. Then we heard a voice, and pres- 
ently a pack train swung into view, lumping 
along at the half dead rate characteristic of pack 
ponies. But the sight of us electrified them. 
Of one accord they turned tail and stampeded 
madly into the bush. Their conductor, an odd- 
looking figure with a bandanna tied over its 
head pursued them, cursing roundly. We 
waited rather foolishly in the trail. It was not 
an auspicious beginning to an acquaintance. 



128 NEIV RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

A second party made its appearance on the 
trail. These horses were better broken. The 
driver rode up, and we surveyed each other curi- 
ously. He with his sombrero, neck handker- 
chief, chaps, and big six-shooter might have 
stepped directly out of the pages of a western 
romance, and he had a large, devil-may-care 
manner to suit. He was in charge of the outfit. 
The horses belonged to the surveyor, and they 
were engaged in transporting his supplies. When 
we stated our predicament he readily agreed to 
carry us across if we would wait over a day to 
let him collect his load. There was grub in the 
cache for all. 

By this time the other man had succeeded in 
rounding up his horses. He proved to be a 
curly-headed young fellow with the face of a boy 
of eighteen. It was only after we had listened 
to his wise talk by the fire that we realized his 
maturity. This was Mac. The bold cow- 
puncher was George. Mac we found had twice 
as good a headpiece as George, but he lacked the 
other's assurance and was content with a subor- 
dinate position. Such is life! 

We slung our bags on the poles "of an aban- 
doned Indian camp, out of reach of inquisitive 
bears, and followed our friends back to the river. 
We lunched together in the highest spirits. 




Sitting on a bag of tlour, paddle in hand and pipe in mouth, 
he made a unique figure 






I uit Si. |olm in tile late al'teinoun 




Beaver Indians near Fort St. John 




St. John Peace in his 
"winter garb" 




The Tiliinderhiiss arranged 
for the niffht 



THE BIG CANYON 129 

There was a youthful recklessness about George 
and Mac that delighted us. Moreover, it was 
the first meal in many days at which my partner 
and I had not felt obliged to count the mouth- 
fuls, and they had jam! How we did lay in to 
be sure. Mac's bannock was even better than 
the cooky's of Summit Lake, though his method 
was the exact reverse. Among such diverse au- 
thorities I despaired of ever attaining any pro- 
ficiency myself. 

They had been ordered to pick up some stuff 
at an old camp ten miles down the canyon, and 
my partner and I eagerly seized at the chance to 
see the canyon in the middle, where but few 
white men have been. We turned half the 
horses out and started on the others. The trail 
was of the roughest and we could never proceed 
above a walk, but it was a great ride, leading us 
for the most part through virgin forest. 

While we rode we improved our new ac- 
quaintances. George did the talking for both 
of them. He could not be induced to tell of his 
experiences in the country. His heart was out- 
side, and he preferred to dwell on how, when he 
last visited Seattle, he had obliged the best tailor 
in town to come to his room and take his measure. 
He was hungry to talk about theaters and restau- 
rants, and whenever '' New York " was men- 



I30 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

tioned, his face became wistful. He particu- 
larly inquired as to the prevailing fashions for 
young men, and when we told him that wide 
shoulders and voluminous trousers were going 
out his face fell. 

" What's a fellow goin' to do if Nature ain't 
been kind to him in that respect," he said de- 
jectedly. Then his face cleared, and he gave 
his pony a cut. " I don't care," he said firmly, 
" when I go to town I'll have the widest shoul- 
ders and the peg-toppedest pants that money can 
buy. It's all right for a business man to dress 
quiet, but when a chap like me blows in for a 
bit of a time, he had ought to look sporty." 

It proved that we had been sent on a fool's 
errand to the old camp. However, we camped 
cheerfully in the rain and had a jolly supper of 
bacon, fried hard-tack, and jam, lashings of jam! 
We opened a new tin at nearly every meal. 
Next day we rode back through the strangely 
beautiful, but now dripping forest. Midway 
we paused at another camp, and here my partner 
and I had our chance to see more of the canyon 
and to photograph it. 

At this point the walls of rock were about a 
hundred and twenty-five feet high. It is hard, 
brown rock built up in many sharply-defined 
transverse layers, that strikingly exhibit the ac- 



THE BIG CANYON 131 

tion of the water. Below where we stood the 
canyon widened out for a little way, and two 
high islands of rock covered with pine trees 
breasted the current like a pair of battle-ships. 
No boat could have lived long in those torn 
waters. Had we had time — and the grub, we 
would dearly have liked to explore the canyon 
from end to end. Judging from what little we 
saw, there must be some wild spots in it. 

On the following day when we made ready to 
cross the portage, the horses we had left behind 
us were not to be found. Everything in the 
Northwest is planned contingent upon catching 
the horses. The four of us spread out and 
scoured the country. In the afternoon I finally 
came upon their tracks and followed them for 
several miles along the Fort Grahame trail, but 
had to turn back without them. Gloom pre- 
vailed in our camp. It rained intermittently. 

Next morning Mac, my partner, and I set off, 
leading three horses, leaving George with the 
fourth to round up the missing beasts. It was 
supposed that a wolf or a bear had stampeded 
them. I trust he had not to pursue them all the 
way to Fort Grahame. That was a hundred and 
fifty miles or more. One of the horses we took 
was packed with sugar and flour for the sur- 
veyor, while the other two carried our outfit. 



132 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

Such was the slowness of their pace that we were 
six hours on the way, and reached Hudson's 
Hope as weary as though we had walked twice 
the distance at our ordinary rate. 

On top of the bank at the Hope a young man 
was waiting for us with a very grave face. This 
was the surveyor. Across the river he had eigh- 
teen men under his care, and the grub had given 
out. He had sent George on a hurry call for 
more, and now after four days we were returning 
with one load I Under the circumstances it 
would not have been surprising had he greeted 
my partner and me worse than coolly. On the 
contrary he was exceedingly polite. When we 
learned the state of affairs we expressed regret 
for our share in holding up his supplies, but he 
waved it aside. A man's first duty was to help 
travelers in distress, he said, which was hand- 
some of him. 



CHAPTER X 

A PEACEFUL INTERLUDE 

THE trading-post at Hudson's Hope is 
opened only in the winters for the con- 
venience of the fur-trade. When we were 
there the little store was boarded up and a sign 
gave notice that trespassers would be " perse- 
cuted." All the old company posts throughout 
the North were erected with an unerring eye for 
a romantic and impressive effect, and this one 
was no exception. It stands in a wide, grassy 
esplanade on top of the bank, which is here some 
two hundred feet high. Save for the canyon 
itself it is the narrowest point on the river, and 
one of the few spots where a railway crossing is 
feasible. The view down stream is very fine. 

From Hudson's Hope to Vermilion rapids, a 
distance of nearly six hundred miles, the river 
pursues its serene course without a break. This 
is the " Peace River country" of rising agricul- 
tural fame. On both sides for practically the 
whole way the land is of great richness, particu- 
larly to the north and west where the prairies 

133 



134 ^^W RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

roll back farther than any white man has been 
to see. At long intervals down the river one or 
two little communities are beginning to break 
ground. It is the " Last West." 

While we were supping with Mac at Hudson's 
Hope we were joined by one Joe White, a true 
dilettante of the North country. One of the 
questions we are asked most frequently is: 
*' What do those fellows do up there?" To 
which the answer is: "A little of everything! " 
A little prospecting, a little freighting, a little 
work by the day, and a great deal of " tripping." 
Joe White commenced by telling us that he 
hadn't been hungry for twenty years and only ate 
from a sense of duty. He added that the 
weather was rotten, he had rotten luck, and the 
country was rotten anyway. He was bound 
down the river, and offered to come with us to 
show the way. Not wishing to have our inno- 
cent delight in the journey poisoned by his su- 
perior knowledge, we declined the offer as deli- 
cately as possible, whereupon he announced with 
gloomy positiveness that we would go to the bot- 
tom in the " chutes " below. I am afraid that 
we only smiled at the terrible prophecy; our 
deaths had been foretold so many times I 

At five o'clock next morning we saw him from 
afar building a raft out of dead logs on a bar be- 






A PEACEFUL INTERLUDE 135 

low. Two hours later we started ourselves and 
overtook him at midday borne upon the broad 
bosom of the river like a doll on a shingle. 
Sitting on his bag of flour, clad in garments 
patched out of all likeness to their first forms, 
paddle in hand and pipe in mouth, he made 
a highly original figure, as the photograph 
shows. When we remarked upon the smallness 
of his craft he retorted that he would " sooner 
have a couple of sound, dry logs under him 
any day than one of them pesky boats that 
would roll you out if you so much as spit 
crooked!" Considering the matronly ampli- 
tude of the Blunderbuss, this struck us as humor- 
ous. 

Joe White the pessimist was none the less hos- 
pitably inclined. When he learned of our short- 
age he pressed bread and bacon on us that we 
had much ado to refuse. Long after we passed 
him we kept looking over our shoulders to see 
him sitting in the river as it seemed, waltzing 
idly in the eddies, and no doubt darkly delib- 
erating on the rottenness of things in general. 
When we landed for lunch, he caught up with 
us ; later in the day we again overtook him. The 
terrible " chutes " he had warned us of gave no 
trouble, indeed we never knew just when we 
passed them. 



136 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

The Peace River like every great river pos- 
sesses a strong Individuality. It has its own look, 
its own characteristic forms and color effects. In 
the six hundred miles from the Hope to Ver- 
milion the character of the banks changes only 
in degree; the bordering hills very gradually 
scale down from a thousand feet to a hundred. 
These hills are the feature of the river. They 
are not really hills for the country is flat on top, 
and it is a kind of gigantic trough in the prairie 
that the river has dug for itself. But hills they 
appear from the river, of an Infinite variety in 
contour and color. On the northerly side where 
the sun beats directly they are for the most part 
covered with grass; on the other side timbered. 
It Is the steep, grassy hills in the late afternoons 
with the sun gilding the high places, and casting 
rich shadows athwart the hollows, that remains 
in our minds as the most characteristic impres- 
sion of the Peace. 

At five o'clock we hove in view of Fort St. 
John, sixty miles from the Hope, and landed 
with less than enough grub on hand for our sup- 
per. It was Sunday (August sixth) and we 
feared lest the trader might have scruples against 
selling us anything, but on the contrary he has- 
tened to open the store. We ordered something 
of everything he had, which was not very much. 



A\ PEACEFUL INTERLUDE 137 

ending for a treat with the can of apples that has 
been mentioned. We enjoyed still another treat 
for the trader, good man, dug us a mess of pota- 
toes out of his own garden. One needs to do 
without potatoes for two months in order to ap- 
preciate what they mean to humankind. 

The trader, Mr. Beaton, was one of the old 
order of Hudson's Bay men. He has been thirty 
years " in the service." He was not the grim 
tyrant we meet with in popular fiction, but a 
single-minded, unassuming Scotchman, with a 
straight look and a hand-grip that inspired con- 
fidence. This summer for the first time the out- 
side world was beginning to break in on him; 
there was a party of surveyors encamped across 
the river and another to the North. Settlers 
were beginning to straggle in. Mr. Beaton con- 
templated this irruption with a shake of the head 
and spoke wistfully of other days. He guessed 
he was too old to change, he said. Later we 
heard that he had resigned his commission, with 
the idea of retiring farther into the wilderness 
to raise horses. 

Fort St. John is the headquarters of the main 
body of the Beaver Indians. They were all 
" pitching about " to the north when we passed 
through. The Beavers are said to be of the same 
stock as the Sarcees, who are now on a reserva- 



138 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

tion near Calgary, five hundred miles southwest, 
and the story is still told of how the division oc- 
curred. It cannot be so long ago because a gun 
figures in it. It is related that when they were 
all one tribe, during one of their annual gather- 
ings near the Rocky Mountain canyon, a dog 
belonging to one family fouled the gun of a 
neighbor. A woman laughed, and a terrible 
battle resulted in which many were killed. 
Everybody took sides with the result that the 
tribe split in two, and the one part went south. 
Mr. Beaton deserves to be known as the father 
of the Beavers. All these years he has been their 
mentor and their guide. He was warm in his 
praise of their good qualities, their scrupulous 
honesty in trade, their skill in the chase, but he 
confessed with a shake of the head that physi- 
cally they were sadly degenerate. Their isola- 
tion as a tribe has probably forced them into 
too close inter-marriage. Such is now their 
lack of stamina that the mildest disease rages 
among them like a pestilence. During the win- 
ter of 1910 they were attacked by the measles, 
and of a hundred and eighty members of the 
tribe, sixty died. Mr. Beaton, who fed, and 
doctored and cheered them as best he could, 
said that their demoralization was pitiful. They 
simply laid down and died. 



A PEACEFUL INTERLUDE 139 

To Fort St. John belongs the story of St. 
John Peace, four years old. This infant was 
the son of " the Wolf," who had four wives 
and thirty-four children besides this one. One 
day in the fall St. John strayed away from the 
tepees. Among so many brothers and sisters his 
absence was not noticed, and while he was gone 
all his relatives migrated to the fur-camps far 
to the north. The rest of the story seems hard to 
believe, but it was given me on good authority. 
During the entire winter the baby fended for 
himself, contending with the dogs for the scraps 
which are none too plentiful at any time, and 
sleeping in little shelters that he contrived. The 
epidemic was raging at the time, and no one 
thought of him; he did not even have a name 
then. 

All he possessed in the world was a cotton 
shirt, a ragged little pair of trousers, and one 
moccasin that he changed from foot to foot. 
Later someone gave him a rag of a blanket about 
as big as a door-mat. And this was one of the 
coldest winters on record; the thermometer 
dropped to 78 below zero. Nevertheless he came 
through well-nourished and healthy. Here is 
his picture, shirt, trousers, one moccasin, and 
all. When the surveyors came in in the summer 
they adopted him and eventually sent him down 



I40 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

to the mission school at Fort Vermilion. He 
was christened St. John Peace on the way. 

An hour or two after we made the fort, Joe 
White arrived on his little raft. He allowed 
that he would lay off at St. John for a couple of 
days to buy him some clothes. This seemed like 
an excessive time allowance, but Joe had no In- 
tention of skimping the pleasure attendant upon 
the display of new raiment. He Immediately 
bought a hat from Mr. Beaton and walked about 
under it during the rest of the evening. In the 
morning he went back for a pair of trousers, 
and got the full satisfaction out of them before 
returning at noon for a pair of " outside " shoes, 
that I am sure pinched him cruelly. In the af- 
ternoon, shortly before we left, he came out In a 
new shirt, and by this time he was so proud he 
scarcely deigned to notice us in passing. 

It had been our intention, could we have se- 
cured horses and a guide, to leave the Peace at 
Fort St. John and look for the source of the Hay 
River, which Is said to lie about a hundred and 
twenty-five miles to the north. We then hoped 
to descend that unexplored stream to its mouth 
in Great Slave Lake. However, everything was 
against this plan. There was no guide to be had 
and Beaton said such trail as there was was used 
by the Indians only In winter; that now it would 



A PEACEFUL INTERLUDE 141 

be impassable by reason of the muskegs which 
were rap full. It had been an unexampled sea- 
son for rain — and mosquitoes. We therefore 
decided to continue by the Peace to Fort Ver- 
milion and try to strike over to the Hay River 
from there. 

The steamboat was hourly expected in St. 
John, and everybody around the post waited on 
the qui vive with eyes fixed down the river. We 
lingered throughout Monday, hoping to share in 
the excitement attendant upon her arrival and 
to hear news of the world. This boat which 
visits them four times a year provides St. John 
with its only regular communication with the 
outside world. While we waited my partner 
and I climbed the hills behind the post and 
feasted royally upon Saskatoon berries, a kind 
of sublimated huckleberry. 

She did not appear, however, and at the end 
of the day we resumed our voyage with the in- 
tention of floating all night. But as yet, after 
what we had seen above, we could not wholly 
trust the peacefulness of the Peace. Every little 
riffle caused us to start up and seize a paddle, 
and it became necessary to go ashore for undis- 
turbed sleep. It was a still, fair night. The 
moon behaved very oddly. She rose in full 
splendor, shone in our faces for an hour or more, 



142 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

and then set only a few degrees from the place 
where she had risen. I must leave the explana- 
tion to an astronomer, as well as the fact that the 
moon rose within a few minutes of the same 
hour and remained full for nearly two weeks. 

At noon next day as we were making leisurely 
progress we were suddenly hailed from the dis- 
tant shore. We paddled in to investigate and 
upon invitation landed to lunch with a sportive 
party of surveyors, waiting there to be picked up 
by the steamboat. We do not know their names, 
nor they ours, nor is it likely we will ever meet 
again, but we will remember their hospitality. 
There is something in mutual camp life that 
brings out the best in man — the irredeemable 
ones do not camp long in company. We partic- 
ularly admired the manner of these fellows to- 
ward each other; under the merciless chaffing 
that spared the boss no more than the chainman, 
they had an unobtrusive consideration for each 
other. Anyway chaff is an admirable corrective 
in a community; not for a fraction of a minute 
will it allow an individual to inflict himself on 
the company. 

The river had by now settled into a steady, 
unbroken sweep of about four miles an hour, and 
when night came around again, we decided that 
we could trust it. The Blunderbuss was about 
as wide amidships as a Pullman berth, and if we 



A PEACEFUL INTERLUDE 143 

piled all our stuff in one end there was just room 
enough for the two of us to lie down side by side. 
After supping on shore we heaped balsam 
boughs in the bottom, and spreading our blan- 
kets, crawled between and cast off. 

It was an odd and delightful experience. 
There we were tucked warmly in our frail 
cradle, not only rocked gently in the current, 
but soothingly waltzed round and round in the 
eddies. It was deliciously comfortable; the 
canvas sides of the Blunderbuss accommodated 
themselves to all the angles of our anatomies. 
Only a single thickness of water-proofed canvas 
separated us from " Davy Jones's locker." A 
pin-prick might have proved our undoing. 

It was too beautiful to allow us to sleep; we 
lay watching the stars swing round our heads 
and listening to the murmur of the current over 
the stones inshore. When we drifted under one 
bank or the other we could see the tops of the 
dark trees gravely marching past the stars, and 
we realized that we were still on the way. Long 
before the moon rose to us, it was painting the 
hills of the northerly shore in a panorama of 
delicate, silvery tones that caught at the breast 
in its loveliness. How strange it was later in the 
night to wake and wonder where we were, and 
while wondering, to drop off again. 

When we finally awoke in the full light of day, 



144 ^^^^^ RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

we were too comfortable and happy to get up 
immediately. We had drifted close to the right- 
hand bank, and as we lay on our backs idly 
watching the sunny hillside above our heads, 
there, just a little way up, we saw a big black 
bear grubbing around the tree-trunks. It was 
so natural a sight I do not think we even moved. 
We looked at him, and he looked at us with no 
less interest. Then we waved good-morning to 
him, and he ran away. It was not until the cur- 
rent threatened to mix us up with the branches 
of a fallen tree that we roused ourselves to the 
paddles. 

We had no idea how far we had traveled while 
we slept, but as we measured the hundred and 
twenty miles to Dunvegan, the next post by half- 
past four, we judged that it had been about forty 
miles. Dunvegan is an ancient post, long the 
headquarters of the Peace River district. At 
present it is of minor importance, though the 
coming of the settlers bids fair to restore its 
ancient trade in a new channel. Meanwhile it 
is famous up and down the river for the trader's 
garden. For many years Mr. Betson has been 
raising astonishing vegetables here, including 
corn and tomatoes, as well as the hardier kinds. 
He gave us a turnip as a big as either of our 
heads and the finest heads of lettuce I ever saw. 




it is the steep, grussv hills in ihe kite iilteinoon that leniaiii as the must 
characteristic impression of the Peace 




The Peace River swinging widely and snperbly among the hills 



A, PEACEFUL INTERLUDE 145 

At Dunvegan we ran into another egregious 
tenderfoot; I suppose as long as there is a West 
this type will continue unchanged. He was a 
spindle-shanked little fellow with the invaria- 
ble " sporting suit " and a hunting knife of the 
largest size. He had two miserable cayuses that 
he bragged about as if they were thoroughbreds. 
His ignorance was only equaled by his self-suffi- 
ciency. In cities this kind of man is quite inof- 
fensive, but in the wilds " to keep his end up " 
he thinks it necessary to puff and brag and blow. 
This specimen was a journalist, God save the 
mark! 

At bedtime we pushed off for Peace River 
Crossing, and once more floated down, sweetly 
lulled asleep by the rocking of our collapsible 
cradle. Toward morning, alas! a change came 
over the spirit of our dream; it started to rain. 
We pulled the tarpaulins over us as best we 
could, but the water collected in pools on top, 
coming through finally in unexpected icy cas- 
cades. When we became thoroughly wet we 
went ashore and built a roaring fire to dry out 
by while breakfasting. 

Afterwards the fine, cold rain came driving 
up the river in white sheets that blotted out all 
the landscape. It promised to be an all-day 
affair, so we made everything snug in the boat 



146 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

and started to paddle down. Again we had no 
idea where we were. We were looking for Car- 
son's, which we knew was the first house of the 
settlement. We had met Mr. Carson in Ed- 
monton and had been invited to stop should we 
pass that way. 

We had a bad half hour. We could not wrap 
up and let her go, because the wind blew us back 
faster than the current carried us down. The 
wet cold penetrated to the very marrow of our 
bones, and our hands became too numb to wield 
the paddles effectively. The wind seemed to be 
actuated by a personal spite against us. We 
were dejectedly discussing whether we had ten 
or thirty miles of this ordeal before us, when we 
happened to look up, and there stood Carson's 
above us. Five minutes later we were deli- 
ciously steaming in a warm kitchen, beside a 
range with nickel-plated trimmings! 



CHAPTER XI 

THE MAJESTY OF THE PEACE 

IN the settlement at Peace River Crossing we 
made our nearest approach to civilization en 
route. Our wide swing around had brought 
us within four hundred miles of Edmonton 
again. Here we reached the first post-office of 
the journey, and in addition we found to our sat- 
isfaction that the government had constructed a 
telegraph line from the outside world. We sent 
lettergrams home and went into camp to await 
the answers. Among its other social advan- 
tages the Crossing supported a hotel of sorts and 
a baker. The only practicable route into the 
country as yet strikes the river here, and the oc- 
casional immigrant families toiled through in 
wagons, just as they crossed the United States 
prairies in our grandfathers' day. 

Among others we made friends here with Ser- 
geant Anderson of the mounted police. He is 
the hero of the King murder case, the story of 
which has been often told. The sergeant was 
a storehouse of useful information. He advised 

147 



148 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

us when making ready to float at night, to cut 
down a spruce tree, tow it into the middle of 
the stream, and tie up to it. The submerged 
branches of the tree obtained such a hold on the 
water, said he, that no slant of wind could blow 
us out of the channel while we slept. 

Having received reassuring messages from 
*' outside," we resumed our journey northward 
at noon on August twelfth. Just above the 
Crossing the Peace receives its largest tributary, 
the Big Smoky River, and henceforward it 
moves down with an increased grandeur. In 
the course of the miles the current gradually 
slackens, and the stream becomes more tortuous, 
swinging widely and superbly, right and left 
among its hills. There are many islands, all 
standing high out of the water, and magnificently 
timbered. Viewed head on they are strikingly 
like great ships of the line mounting the stream. 
Fort Vermilion, the next post, lay three hundred 
miles down stream; the distance between was 
empty as yet of any white men. 

In the course of the first afternoon we idly 
observed what we thought was a log drifting 
down the river ahead of us. Two black spots 
showed above the water, swinging slowly in the 
eddies. We paid no particular attention until 
it was suddenly borne in on us tliat the supposed 




The most dignified figure was Benjamin Caidinal 
ninety years old 




Father, mother and three babies in a dugout vvitii all their worldly goods 



THE MAJESTY OF THE PEACE 149 

log was edging toward the shore on our right. 
We then made to investigate in earnest. Unfor- 
tunately we had by this time come almost abreast 
of the object and had therefore to fight the cur- 
rent in order to make shore. We presently per- 
ceived that one black spot was the head and the 
other the rump of a big bear. 

He climbed out on the shore without having 
discovered us. We exclaimed in soft astonish- 
ment at the hugeness of him. Neither of us had 
ever seen his equal in a zoological garden. He 
looked as big as a bull. The big head, the pow- 
erful shoulders, the straight back were all sig- 
nificant; we were looking at our first grizzly. 
We nearly broke the paddles in the endeavor 
to get well within range. 

At three hundred yards my partner picked up 
his gun and fired, but the bullet went into the 
water. The bear turned, presenting a full 
broadside, and looked us over with calm inquiry. 
Another shot tore up the ground beneath him, 
bombarding him with pebbles and sand. He 
broke for cover, and when we landed we could 
still hear him panting up the hill above our 
heads. My partner still mourns his escape, bit- 
terly accusing his own lack of skill. But after 
putting every ounce of strength into the paddle 
for a quarter of a mile, it is not so easy to quiet 



I50 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

the muscles instantaneously and take aim from 
a moving boat. 

We were living high these few days. The gar- 
dens at the Crossing had contributed to our store, 
and our lunches eaten while we floated in the 
stream consisted of bread and butter with let- 
tuce, radishes, and young onions, and honey for 
dessert. It was for dinner this day, which we 
cooked on the shore below the mouth of the 
Whitemud River, that the stew of bacon, onions, 
tomatoes, and rice was evolved. After the 
shortage of our first days on the river, all this 
seemed almost too good to be true. 

After dinner, according to the sergeant's direc- 
tions, my partner chopped down a spruce tree so 
that it would fall in the water. But in his en- 
thusiasm he chose a young monarch of the for- 
est, and we nearly broke our backs trying to tow 
it out into the main current. Tying up to it at 
last, we lay down, but not to sleep, for the Blun- 
derbuss insisted on playing tag with the tree, and 
it was hardly soothing just as you were crossing 
the borderland of consciousness, to hear a sud- 
den scraping like claws on the canvas side of 
your bed. We finally cast off the tree with 
heartfelt condemnation and went down with- 
out it. 

The second day was charming and uneventful. 



THE MAJESTY OF THE PEACE i^i 

On the third day we had frequent cold squalls 
of wind and rain, but the accompanying sky- 
pictures were beautiful enough to distract our 
attention from the discomfort. The yellowy- 
gray rain-clouds poked their heads successively 
over the hills on our left. By and by we be- 
came expert in judging whether or not they were 
disposed to spit on us, and by paddling hard or 
hanging back sometimes we could dodge. There 
was an hour in the afternoon when it began to 
clear that neither of us will ever forget. Over- 
head the sky was as blue as a turquoise bowl, 
while around the horizon rose a mass of wildly 
tumbled and swelling cloud masses shining in 
the sun like the mountains and plains of a fairer 
world than ours. 

We met an Indian family bound up-stream 
for the fall hunting; father, mother, and three 
babies in a dug-out with all their worldly goods, 
and four canine retainers accompanying them se- 
dately along the shore. The elders only giggled 
self-consciously when we tried to open conversa- 
tion and refused to help us out; as for the babies 
in their gay bonnets, they merely sucked their 
thumbs and stared. 

At midday we came in view of the Cree com- 
munity on Carcajou point. The people were 
all on the beach, making and mending canoes for 



152 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

a general migration in search of game. These 
Indians are of sadly mixed blood, and the result 
is a striking collection of hybrids. Some are of 
a strong French cast, while their own brothers 
may look just as Scotch, or maybe pure savage, 
and there was one portly gentleman with a goatee 
who was cast in a Dutch mold. One of the most 
comic figures was that of an undersized young 
man clad in a fashionable rain-coat several sizes 
too big for him. The most dignified person was 
Benjamin Cardinal, ninety years old, whose pic- 
ture, together with the canoe he was making ap- 
pears herewith. 

That night, there being no spruce trees con- 
venient when we wanted one, we cut down a pop- 
lar, and lashed the Blunderbuss alongside its 
slender stem. It did not serve very well, for we 
awoke in the night to find ourselves aground. 
Next day the wind still held strong from the 
west, and when the river tended in that direction, 
we had a hard fight against wind and waves. But 
we actually enjoyed the change, for truth to tell 
we were a little weary of the ever-smoothly flow- 
ing river. We yearned for some rapids to stir 
the blood. 

The fourth night of the journey stands out 
as one of the most perfect of all the summer. 
We supped at sunset on the shore of a beautiful 



THE MAJESTY OF THE PEACE 153 

long reach of the river. The hills had flattened 
down thus far north, and across from where we 
sat a long line of jack-pines made a fantastic sil- 
houette against the sea of pale amber light in 
which the sun had foundered. High above the 
trees stretched a line of little clouds like a golden 
chain, and below hung a single extraordinary 
star like a pendant. All this was repeated with 
subtle soft blurrings in the burnished face of the 
river. The western light lingered endlessly with 
lovely slow changes. By the time we pushed off 
and went to bed it had changed from amber to a 
bowl of jade supported in the curiously cn.rved 
ebony cup of the jack-pines. 

There was not a breath of wind, hence no need 
of a tree. Again it was beautiful enough to keep 
us awake long after our time. All the worders 
of Heaven were shown to us; rich showers of 
meteors and a delicate display of Northern 
Lights. In my partner's notebook I find the 
entry: " It was so still that it hurt the ears." 
Later in the night I was awakened by the moon 
shining in my face, whereupon I sat up and en- 
joyed it all over again. But I could not for the 
life of me decide which was up-stream and 
which down. 

In the morning we simultaneously sat up In 
the boat, conscious of having been disturbed by 



154 ^^^ RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

an uncommon sound. We looked about us and 
listened for it to repeat itself. The early sun- 
light on the river was highly exhilarating. We 
speculated on how far we might be from Fort 
Vermilion. At last we heard the sound again, 
a most significant sound in the wilderness, the 
tinkle of a horse bell. Then from far ofip we 
heard the barking of a dog and made out the 
end of a fence coming down to the river. We 
had arrived while we slept. 

The first inhabitant of the settlement that we 
came upon was a very old man fishing from the 
shore. He did not see us until we were close 
on him, but with the incuriousness of age he be- 
trayed no surprise at our sudden appearance, or 
at our odd-looking craft. He was disposed to 
be affable. His name, he informed us with a 
[particular emphasis, was Robert Henry Smith, 
senior, and all the people that lived as far as we 
could see up and down the river were his de- 
scendants. He then enumerated them in detail. 
*' And me," he concluded with a shake of the 
head, " me the father of them all, Robert Henry 
Smith, senior, seventy years old, has nothing 
better to do than hunt fish! " 

It transpired that we had landed at the 
Dominion experimental station at Vermilion, of 
which one of Mr. Smith's sons-in-law, Robert 



THE MAJESTY OF THE PEACE 155 

Jones, was in charge. Upon his Invitation we 
climbed the bank to see what could be grown 
so far North. The display was astonishing; we 
saw currant bushes laden with ripe fruit and 
nearly every kind of vegetable, including aspara- 
gus, corn, and tomatoes, as well as the hardier 
kinds. The corn and the tomatoes do not al- 
ways ripen fully, but the experiment station is 
only three years old and the superintendent is 
confident of getting them yet. The cereals and 
the leguminous plants are the finest I ever saw; 
in fact, anything that can be made to grow at 
all In the North reaches a greater perfection here 
than elsewhere. This is true, as well, of flow- 
ers. The flower-garden of the station was a 
wonderful blaze of color. The star attraction 
was a rose-bush in full bloom — and this north of 
latitude fifty-eight! Mr. Jones presented us 
with a basket of fresh eggs which were as strange 
to us as rare and valuable curiosities. 

As we proceeded down the river, we passed 
the large buildings of the Roman Catholic mis- 
sion and finally hove in view of the Hudson's 
Bay establishment. This is said to be one of 
the best-conducted and most profitable posts of 
the North, which is undoubtedly true, but we 
were very disappointed with our first view of it. 

The trader lived in a big, yellow, clap-boarded 



(156 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

house with turning-lathe trimmings, that might 
have been transported entire from Paterson, N. 
J., and the big store and warehouse were cov- 
ered with gaudy signs worthy of a bargain store 
in the same town. What has become of the dig- 
nity of the ancient company I Instead of that 
noble old mouthful : " The Governor and Com- 
pany of Gentlemen Adventurers Trading into 
Hudson's Bay," they now call themselves pertly: 
*' The Great Traders of the Great West ! " What 
a falling off is here I 

We were very kindly received at the Fort, and 
I trust that our friends will not take it amiss 
that we disapprove of the innovations. Prog- 
ress is progress, and the Spirit of Romance is 
always retreating anyway. But fancy the shock 
of coming upon an electric light plant and mis- 
sion furniture in the heart of the fur country I 

The farming settlement at Vermilion extends 
for about fifteen miles along both sides of the 
river. A peculiar interest has long attached 
to it as the most northerly agricultural commu- 
nity in America. It is true that their fine crops 
are sometimes touched by early frosts — this hap- 
pened while we were there, but Mr. Jones said 
that they had never been completely frozen out 
during the seventeen years that regular farming 
has been carried on there. The danger from 




The Author and Mahtsonza on the'-Hav'River 




^^^ 





^-^^ 



Indians on the Hay River Trail — Aleck on the right 



THE MAJESTY OF THE PEACE 157 

frost will lessen as a larger territory is opened 
to cultivation. The land is exceedingly rich. 
At present the little community is hampered by; 
its isolation. There is no communication except 
by the steamboat I have mentioned, four trips 
to the Crossing every summer, or by driving in 
over the ice in the winter, a trifle of seven hun- 
dred miles or so. 

The Hudson's Bay Company has established 
a roller process mill to take care of the grain, 
and the surplus flour is shipped to the posts still 
farther north. The mill and the fine modern 
steamboat are largely due to the energy and 
enterprise of the trader, Mr. Wilson. In addi- 
tion to " the Company " establishment, Revillon 
Freres, " the French outfit," maintain a store 
across the river, and this year a third outfit came 
in to compete. At last accounts (January, 
!I9I2) a merry fur war was in progress, and the 
Indians were profiting greatly. All three stores 
were buying fur at a loss. 

Our principal concern at Fort Vermilion was 
to arrange for a trip to the unexplored Hay 
River. We learned that the company maintained 
an outpost at the nearest point on the Hay River 
during the winters, and there was consequently a 
good trail. As to the river beyond, or the great 
falls that we were so anxious to find we could col- 



158 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

lect only vague and conflicting reports. As far 
as was known only one party of white men had 
descended the river before us; this was a three- 
man outfit bound for the Klondike in 1898. I 
have since found that Bishop Bompas descended 
the river in 1 872. It was he who discovered and 
named the Alexandra Falls. 

It was now too late in the season to descend 
right through to Great Slave Lake and return 
by the Athabasca River. Our only chance of 
getting home before winter set in was to return 
to Fort Vermilion after visiting the Falls, al- 
ways providing that we found them, and take 
passage on the little Hudson's Bay launch that 
makes the last trip on the river every fall. Mr. 
Wilson promised to hold it for us until Septem- 
ber 15th. 

Everybody tried to dissuade us from the trip 
and prophesied a catastrophe if we persisted. 
Grim tales were told us of the animals that had 
been carried over the Falls unaware, and whose 
bones were piled beneath. It was said that the 
Falls gave no warning until it was too late to 
turn back. Gus Clark, the man who had been 
out to the Hay River to trade for the Company, 
was the only one from whom we obtained any 
real information, and he was more encouraging. 
He told us all that the Indians had told him, 



THE MAJESTY OF THE PEACE 159 

much of which proved to be incorrect, but that 
was not his fault. We declined to take an In- 
dian down the river with us and never regretted 
the decision. Mr. Wilson found a man with 
horses to carry us across the portage, and after 
duly replenishing our supplies, we left Fort Ver- 
milion on August 2 1 St. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE "blunderbuss" ON HORSEBACK 

OUR conductor across the portage to the 
Hay River was Aleck Ascota, a Beaver 
Indian. We w^ere not highly impressed 
by our first sight of him. He was a little fellow 
of uncertain age, as meager and ill-favored as a 
gutter snipe, and his ragged clothes would have 
held two of him. Among the white men at the 
Fort he moved with a whipped air, but on the 
trail when he discovered that we had no disposi- 
tion to browbeat him, he plucked up a small 
spirit. All our conversation had to be carried 
on in signs, which came more natural to him 
than to us ; we could never quite rid ourselves 
of the feeling that if we said a thing often enough 
and loud enough he must comprehend at last. 
He was accustomed to having white men do the 
lordly, and we who had never had anybody to 
wait on us had some difficulty at first in living 
up to his Ideals. 

He had three horses. The gelding he rode 

i6o 



ON HORSEBACK i6t 

was an animal of no particular character, but 
the other two who carried packs kept us amused 
with their canny ways. We christened them 
Entero and Lizzie. The latter was the clown 
of the troupe; when her pack became loosened 
she would sit down in the trail like a dog until 
it was fixed, and we swore that she used to go 
to sleep en route. At any rate she would fall 
behind a mile or more, and then suddenly come 
tearing along the trail, whinnying wildly for 
her beloved companion. Ordinarily she lumped 
along as if half dead, but it was a shallow pre- 
tense; twice for no reason at all she ran away, 
scattering our belongings widely over the land- 
scape. 

We walked ahead, making the pace. After 
our long confinement in the Blunderbuss it was 
delightful to travel afoot. Water views neces- 
sarily deal only in large effects, but the fields are 
painted in ever-varying detail. In the boat, 
moreover, our eyes were always unconsciously 
fixed on our course ahead, while here they were 
free to roam at will. After leaving behind the 
last log hut with Its field of grain, we struck 
through an engaging parklike country, stretches 
of prairie alternating with groves of white- 
stemmed poplars. The meadows were gay with 
the purple of wild aster, the gold of golden-rod, 



i62 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

and the lovely pinks of painter's brush. Every- 
where wsLS a rank growth of pea-vine, indicative 
of a rich soil. This was supposed to be a wagon 
road, but for the most part it showed only the 
single track of a pack-trail. 

A pack-trail makes an appeal to something 
very deep in us ; who can stumble on one without 
a strong desire to follow to the end? These 
narrow paths, beaten into the earth like a shal- 
low furrow, wandering widely over the prairies 
and stealing through the forests, are among the 
most truly American things we have left, and 
the oldest. Having once been marked by use, 
years of neglect will not efface them; they last 
until the earth is plowed. They never run quite 
straight, even on the flattest plains, yet the 
breadth of them, three and a half hands, is as 
unvarying as a piece of woven ribbon. 

After " spelling " twice during the day, we 
made camp beside a little river across from an 
Indian village, Aleck's village. This was a dis- 
orderly, picturesque quadrangle of tepees filled 
with galloping horses, barking dogs, and scream- 
ing children. All the winter goods, snow- 
shoes, dog-sledges, and furs were slung up on 
vertical poles out of harm's way. After supper 
Aleck's children came splashing unconcernedly 
across the river — it was all one to them whether 



ON HORSEBACK (163 

they were wet or dry — to pay us a visit. The 
eldest boy carried the baby in a sling on his back. 
It was a deplorable little party; dirty, diseased, 
and hideously ugly; they had not had even half 
a show in the world. 

At sunrise when Aleck turned up we were still 
asleep. We traveled thirty miles this day and 
camped in a pretty meadow higher up on the 
same stream. In the long twilight we sat over 
the fire talking sign language with Aleck. He 
asked us where we had come from. That was 
easy; down the big river from the high moun- 
tains. We asked him how far we were from the 
Hay River. He closed his eyes, let his head 
fall, and then held up two fingers. Two sleeps! 
He evinced great interest in my partner's note- 
book. By indicating the route over which we 
had come and pointing to the book, we tried 
to convey that it was a record of the journey. 
He shook his head. We then gave him a spir- 
ited pantomime of Lizzie's running away and 
made it clear it was written in the book. He 
got that. Taking a great swallow of tea, he 
wanted to know if we were going to write that 
down. 

The country was uniformly flat except for a 
single hill running north and south that was in 
view nearly the whole way. On the third day 



i64 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

we crossed the imperceptible divide, and there- 
after the streams flowed westward. The ground 
was stonier and less fertile on this side. We 
passed two pretty lakes drained by a smoothly 
flowing river that wound its crooked way 
through meadows of grass waist high. We 
christened it the Meander. A party of Indians 
bound for the Hay River rode with us a while, 
our combined cavalcades making a picturesque 
sight on the trail. 

This was a much more laborious method of 
travel than by water. Three times a day the 
horses had to be unladen and turned out to graze ; 
and three times a day they had to be caught 
again, saddled, and packed. All this of course 
in addition to the usual routine of getting wood, 
building the fire, cooking, and cleaning up. 
Aleck had but little science in packing, and the 
rolled-up Blunderbuss was his despair. It con- 
tinually worked loose, and much of the time poor 
Entero was painfully trying to maintain his equi- 
librium with his pack over one ear. Moreover 
the long end of the bundle hit him over the crup- 
per at every step, finally producing a lump that 
caused his master great anxiety. 
Xy To my chagrin I developed a case of mal de 
/ \ raquette, or snowshoe sickness, on the trail. 
True, I had not been wearing snowshoes, but the 



ON HORSEBACK 1165 

long tramp in moccasins produced the same re- 
sult. It is an affection of the tendons that run 
up beside the shin-bone. The leg swells above 
the ankle and becomes hotly inflamed. It gives 
no trouble when the leg is in rest, but in walk- 
ing! And I had to maintain my three miles 
and a half an hour. I found I did best at the 
head of the procession where I was obliged to 
step out smartly. 

At the end of the fourth day after a weary 
march, we suddenly commenced to descend, and 
presently the trees opening up, we saw the sun 
going down over the river of our desires. The 
sight repaid us for all our labor. It was a deep 
and smoothly flowing brown stream, say three 
hundred yards wide. It swung around a wide 
bend below us and disappeared with an alluring 
promise. The banks were green and charming. 
It was a real river worthy of any man's journey, 
and we were satisfied. 

At our feet there was an extensive flat through 
which the Meander made its way to join the 
larger stream. On either side of the Meander 
was a line of tepees, each with a curl of smoke 
issuing from the peak into the still evening air. 
Our passage through the village had all the ef- 
fect of a circus. We camped a little way be- 
yond, and throughout the evening received the 



1 66 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

natives in relays. They squatted silently beside 
our fire taking note of all our household arrange- 
ments with an earnestness that was embarrassing 
until we became accustomed to it 

These Indians were much better physical 
specimens than those we had seen nearer the 
Fort. There were many beautiful children 
among them. They are of the Etchareottine 
tribe, " people dwelling in the shelter," a name 
referring to their ancient custom of building 
their lodges behind the dense willows that line 
their rivers. They are of a mild and unwarlike 
disposition, good hunters and scrupulously 
honest. They have adopted the white man's 
dress, which spoils their picturesqueness, but in 
other respects they still lead the life of their 
forefathers with very little change. The stock 
is rapidly running out, largely on account of in- 
ter-marriage. By the hardier tribes they have 
always been called the Slave Indians, or Slavis. 

As one travels north the Indians approach 
more and more to the Mongol type. Thus the 
Slavis are shorter than the Crees, with broader, 
flatter faces, and eyes tending to obliquity. Their 
original habitat was around Lesser Slave Lake, 
but the Crees, a stronger race, have little by lit- 
tle shouldered them westward, as the white men 
are in turn shouldering the Crees. Very little 



ON HORSEBACK 167 

is known about the Etchareottine or Slavis, their 
language is difficult for us, but they retain their 
ancient ways to a considerable degree, and a 
study of this rapidly disappearing tribe would 
repay an anthropologist. 

As to popular literature on the redskins in 
general, as everybody knows, it is rather mis- 
leading. This is principally because the writers 
(including some famous names) insist on apply- 
ing our thoughts and feelings to them, whereas 
their fascination for us lies, not in their likeness 
to us, but in their differences. For instance, love 
between the sexes which occupies such an over- 
whelming place in our literature is very much 
less important to the Indian. His overmaster- 
ing passion is a love of the chase, together with, 
in the case of most tribes, a love of warfare. 
His susceptibility to feeling of any kind is less 
than the white man's, and he requires a stronger 
stimulus. Hence his love of gambling, his 
fanatic dances, and his cruelty. 

His very simplicity of nature is baffling to 
us. Occasional individuals of the Indian type 
are to be found in our race. They are easily 
recognizable as such, and they afford us our 
best standards of measuring the real thing. We 
all know the man. He is of course of a lean, 
hard, active habit of body and a temperament 



1 68 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

inclining to the Saturnine. He is the reverse 
of what you would call a man of feeling, and he 
sedulously conceals the display of what feelings 
he has. He is above all liberty-loving, and re- 
straint and discipline of any kind are intolerable 
to him. He is stubborn in his ways, that is to 
say, instinctively resistant to outside influences, 
but he is keenly sensitive to ridicule. Such a 
man will nearly always be found to possess a 
genuinely poetic appreciation of nature and 
natural phenomena. On the other hand, his 
mental processes are simple to the point of child- 
ishness. 

Such is the Indian. It may sound like an un- 
favorable portrait, but it is not intended as such. 
It is an admirable character with its qualities of 
strength, hardness, resolution, and courage, but 
it is not a sentimental one. The reason why the 
Indians are so attractive to the young males of 
our race is really very easy to understand. 

A good deal of nonsense has also been writ- 
ten about their woodcraft. The Indians have 
no special senses. It is true that the five that 
we possess in common are generally in better 
working order with them, but that is because we 
have dulled ours with artificial ways of living. 
There is no respect in which a white man with 
the same training may not equal an Indian. 



ONj HORSEBACK 169 

They have no faculty of generalization and but 
small powers of deduction. Their surprising 
sureness in the woods is due simply to an ac- 
quired knowledge of the place. 

It should be borne in mind that the Indian's 
radius is small, and he becomes passionately 
attached to his own little country. He learns 
to know every mound and every tree like the 
words of an often-read book. It is his sole con- 
cern in life. Imagine a man who had but one 
book to read and who did nothing but read and 
re-read it all his life long, and the Indian's 
familiarity with his own woods and plains can 
be comprehended. 

In a strange country, however, though it may 
adjoin his own, he is more helpless than a white 
man. Their ability to follow tracks through the 
bush, and more especially over a grassy plain, 
and all that they can read in the tracks is truly 
astonishing to a man from the pavements, but I 
have seen white men become as expert. 

In the Meander we found a dug-out belonging 
to the French outfit, that we had been told we 
might use if it was there. A dug-out was more 
suitable for poling or tracking up-stream than 
the clumsy Blunderbuss, and I therefore made it 
clear to Aleck that our boat was to go back. 
Aleck among his own people was very different 



ijo NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

from Aleck alone among the whites. He 
pointed to the lump it had raised on Entero's 
back and sullenly refused. Here was a quan- 
dary. We meant to walk back ourselves, and 
if he did not take the boat it must be abandoned. 
It is difficult to deal with insubordination in the 
sign language. I strove to maintain a firm air 
and said no more. 

In the morning he brought up a dozen of his 
friends to assist in the argument. They squatted 
beside the fire and in turn undertook to demon- 
strate the impossibility of using the dugout. One 
said with his fingers that we could reach the 
Falls in two days with our boat, whereas the dug- 
out would take six. Another showed us in vivid 
pantomime how rotten the dug-out was and how 
it would go to pieces in the rapids. This was 
our first intimation that there were any rapids. 
Aleck himself essayed to prove the rottenness by 
jabbing his pen-knife through the bottom, but 
we stopped that. 

We discussed the matter between ourselves, 
taking care to conceal our state of indecision 
from the camp-fire group. The dug-out was an 
old one and half-full of water, but my partner 
said Aleck had filled it on the sly. It was in- 
deed rotten; the bottom was like a sponge, and 
one could pick ofl large slices of the soft wood. 
On the other hand we were loathe to abandon 



i 



ON HORSEBACK 171; 

our corpulent little friend, the Blunderbuss, in 
the wilderness, and we hated to be blufifed by a 
parcel of redskins. There seemed to be a thin 
skin of sound wood on the outside of the dugout, 
and in the end we decided to take it. 

Dumping out the water, we started to load up, 
disregarding the exclamations and the darkly 
prophetic shakes of the head from the party 
above. We afterwards rolled the Blunderbuss 
in a more convenient bundle and showed Aleck 
a better way to pack it. He preserved a sullen, 
walled expression and refused to look. I then 
bethought me of the effect of writing a letter. 
To these simple souls there is a kind of magic 
in conveying your thoughts by a few marks upon 
paper. 

I unconcernedly sat down with paper and pen- 
cil, and they all became sharply attentive. I 
wrote Mr. Wilson, briefly setting forth the cir- 
cumstances and requesting him not to pay Aleck 
unless he brought the boat back. I then folded 
the sheet in the form of an envelope and sealed 
it with a wafer of adhesive tape. Soft exclama- 
tions of astonishment traveled around the atten- 
tive circle. I gave the note to Aleck, making 
him understand who it was for. He took it as 
if it were red hot, and I knew from his changed 
expression that he would take the boat. And he 
did. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE UNEXPLORED RIVER 

IMMEDIATELY afterwards we pushed off 
full of fearful and delightful anticipations 
of our unknown journey. Here we had no 
maps and no reliable information ; some had said 
it was but one day's journey to the Falls, while 
others had placed it as high as six. Knowing 
the position of Great Slave Lake into which the 
Hay River empties and the distance from the 
lake back to the Falls, and allowing for the 
windings of the river, we guessed that we had 
about one hundred and eighty miles to go, and 
this or a little more proved to be right. 

The dug-out was more than twice as long as 
the Blunderbuss and less than one-half her width. 
"We christened our new craft the Serpent. We 
had to learn to steer all over again, for whereas 
the Blunderbuss spun blithely on her center un- 
der a twist of the paddle, the Serpent obstinately 
held her course. The problem was further com- 

172 



THE UNEXPLORED RIVER 173 

plicated by the Serpent's warped disposition; 
her bow pointed to starboard while her stern 
was making port. It was several days before 
we could tease her into going straight, and we 
never got over the feeling that she would dump 
us out if we spoke too loud. 

The river was very beautiful in its rich sum- 
mer dress. It was just the right size for a voy- 
age such as ours, big enough to command re- 
spect, small enough to draw us into intimacy 
with the shores. During the first day it opened 
out before us in successive smooth reaches, with 
banks of a uniform height of twenty feet or so. 
The bordering country was densely wooded with 
jack-pine and poplar, and graceful willows dec- 
orated the inside of every bend. Like all the 
prairie rivers the Hay is subject to a consider- 
able rise and fall during the season, but here 
there are no unsightly stretches of mud, for as 
fast as the water goes down the banks are man- 
tled with the tender green of goose-grass. 

Thus the characteristic picture that met our 
eyes as we looked around a bend was of a smooth, 
brown current moving between these velvety 
green slopes, while along the edge of the bank 
above, as if set out by a gardener, stretched a 
line of berry bushes already crimsoned by the 
first frosts, and the rich, dark green of the pines 



174 ^^W RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

enframed the whole. Here and there In the 
river where the composition seemed to require 
it, a perfect island was planted to satisfy the eye. 

We landed for lunch on a convenient bar of 
stones beneath the bank. The pretty green 
banks I should explain were rather mushy to 
step out on. While we were stewing dried ap- 
ples and frying flap-jacks, a birch bark canoe 
unexpectedly appeared around the bushes. At 
the sight of us the solitary occupant almost col- 
lapsed with astonishment, and sat staring with 
saucer eyes, muttering to himself in his own 
lingo. There is something very flattering in 
making such a strong impression wherever you 
appear; by the time we had met a few more Hay 
River Indians we began to feel very superior. 

It was a young fellow of twenty or thereabout. 
He finally found the courage to land, and ap- 
proaching us held out his hand to be shaken. 
He brought wood for the fire and sat down be- 
side it, eyeing us sidewise meanwhile, like a child 
that is forming its own conclusions. Suddenly 
he laid his hand on his stomach and a heavy 
groan broke from him. We asked if he were 
hungry, and he replied by pointing to his mouth, 
shaking his head, then closing his eyes, and 
holding up three fingers. 

Nothing to eat for three days I Our hearts 



THE UNEXPLORED RIVER 175 

were touched. We had no bread baked, but 
we gave him what scraps of hard-tack we had 
left and filled a little bag of flour for him, so 
that he could bake some for himself. He didn't 
appear to care for the hard-tack, so we fried 
some bacon for him to eat with it. He nibbled 
a little and put it aside. We had heard how 
men became so hungry that their stomachs re- 
fused food, and we became more and more con- 
cerned for him. We tempted him with flap- 
jacks and apple-sauce, which he accepted, but 
put aside on his plate with what else we had 
given him. 

Suddenly he got up and, hastily embarking 
without a look toward us, set off down-stream. 
This was strange, because we had understood 
him to say that he was trying to struggle up to 
the cache, but we decided that he must have a 
starving companion, perhaps a wife or a child, 
below that must be fed before he would eat him- 
self. Such was his hurry that he left his axe 
behind. We shouted after him and held it up. 
He motioned to us to bring it along when we 
came. 

When we had finished our own flap-jacks, 
which were never a complete success, we fol- 
lowed. Hidden among the willows below we 
found three graceful canoes, each with a solitarjr 



176 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

paddler waiting for us as still as mice and with 
eyes full of strained expectancy like children at 
the circus. It was no great wonder, for the last 
time white men had been seen on their river 
the young men of this day were little boys. Our 
starving man was on the outside of the three, 
and alas! for our faith in human nature, they 
all had moose meat, rabbits, and fresh caught 
fish, much better food than we. The beggar 
stared at us as wondering and unashamed as a 
baby and never so much as offered us a fish. We 
laughed at the joke on ourselves, shook hands 
all round, and went on. 

Farther down we saw an old canoeist pur- 
suing a musk-rat under the willows. Seeing us, 
he abandoned the chase and hailed us with shouts 
of laughter. When we reached him he laughed 
and exclaimed and laughed again, pawing us all 
over, and refusing to let go our canoe. His 
face was as wrinkled and dirty as a floorcloth 
and very much the same color; around his head 
he had twisted a strip of cotton in the style lately 
so popular among our ladies, sometimes called 
a " headache band." He jabbered away, telling 
us all his hopes and fears no doubt, of which 
we were not the wiser by a single word. The 
Slavis talk a most uncouth dialect that for the 
pronunciation seems to require a deal of saliva. 






ifi' ' 










It opened up before us in successive, smooth reaches 




The opposite wall rose out into a bold promontory around which the river swung 



THE UNEXPLORED RIVER 177 

We made out that our friend was called Le Cou- 
vert, or the Blanket. When we tried him with 
our talk, he violently shook his head and pulled 
at his ears, exactly like a dog when he gets water 
in his head. We had literally to tear ourselves 
away. 

We made about fifty miles on the first day 
and camped under some tepee poles on a fine 
site in a sharp elbow of the stream. On this 
night (August 25th) descended the first hard 
frost of the season. We awoke covered with 
rime and found our shoe-packs frozen solid. A 
thick white mist rose from the river, through 
which the rays of the sun struggled faintly; 
the branches of the trees crackled like musketry 
as the air began to stir. We stole down, hug- 
ging the shore and imagining that we heard 
the roar of the Falls at every bend. We were 
ready to leap ashore at the slightest warning. 

This part of the river pursued a course as 
crooked as Archimedes' screw. Within a few 
hours we counted twenty-five right and left 
bends, all so much alike that I would defy any- 
one, even after long experience on the river, to 
tell them apart. On the outside of each bend 
the current cut under the high bank until the pine 
trees along the edge fell in and lay with their 
branches tangled in the water, waiting for a 



178 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

freshet to sweep them down, whereupon a new 
lot would fall in their places. Meanwhile on 
the other side of each bend the busy river threw 
up the sand that it had dug out above in wide 
bars. These bends were all uniform, half way 
round to the right, then back to the left, like the 
grand chain figure of the lancers. This will 
go on I suppose, the river becoming crookeder 
and crookeder until the fine day arrives when it 
breaks through to the other side of all the bends, 
and has to start all over. 

We met several Indians in the course of the 
day, none of whom is worthy of especial mention 
except Jimmie. At sunset he came paddling 
out from behind an island, with his little boy 
sitting in the canoe behind him. Jimmie had a 
magnificent head of hair cut a la Buster Brown, 
and an open and intelligent countenance that 
attracted us strongly. He was a gentleman and 
kept his astonishment well in hand. We con- 
versed in polite signs. We told him we were 
bound for the great Falls, and were afterward 
coming back. He volunteered his services as a 
guide and quietly let the matter drop when we 
regretfully declined. He told us we were still 
two sleeps from the Falls and that he would 
show us the best camping-place for the coming 
night. Of all we met, Jimmie was the only In- 
dian who asked us for nothing. 



THE UNEXPLORED RIVER 179 

During all this we were paddling side by side, 
Jimmy glancing sidewise at our outfit and we 
at his. It was beneath our dignity to appear to 
race with a redskin, but as he slyly hit up the 
pace, we could hardly let him run away from us. 
Soon we were fairly flying down the river, all 
smiling unconcernedly and making believe it 
was just our ordinary rate. All these Indians 
sit fiat in the center of their canoes, using a short 
paddle, which they swing continually from hand 
to hand in order to keep a straight course. We 
had criticized this style among ourselves, but 
we had to take it back after meeting Jimmie. 
He walked away from us. It is true, our boat 
was about ten times as heavy as his, but there 
were two of us. 

We liked the keen and business-like way of 
Jimmie's searching the bank as he went. Clearly 
he was a good hunter, and the little boy who sat 
behind him so quietly was receiving no mean 
education. Although it was a chill night this 
child had nothing on but a cotton shirt opening 
over his bare chest, a pair of overalls, and mocca- 
sins. Yet he did not appear to be sensible of 
the cold. 

Jimmie met a friend down-stream and the two 
of them waited for us to come up. Jimmie in- 
dicated that this was the place to camp, and he 
made the little boy get out and cut willow 



i8o NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

branches to lay In the mud for us to step out on. 
Then he and his friend bade us good-night, as 
we thought, and pushed ofif. However, they 
only turned around in the stream and hung con- 
cealed under the willows just below, whence 
they watched us sharply. 

When we had landed all our stufif and made 
the dug-out secure for the night, they paddled 
up and joined us again. At the time we were 
unable to comprehend this maneuver, but it has 
occurred to me since that they did not consider it 
polite to land until we had gone ashore. We 
noticed of all of them when we camped in com- 
pany, that even though their food was ready 
before ours was cooked, they would not begin to 
eat until we had first taken a mouthful. 

We camped beside a generous fire in a grove 
of magnificent and fragrant pines. The little 
boy skinned and cleaned a rabbit, and impaling 
it on a sharpened stick, stuck the stick in the 
ground inclining toward the fire. Half of it 
was charred black and the rest nearly raw. 
Though it was all the supper they had, Jimmie 
pressed it on us warmly. The other man de- 
voured a great piece of unwholesome looking 
flesh, after allowing it to toast for a few minutes 
as a mere formality. 

Afterwards the silent child rolled up in a 



THE UNEXPLORED RIVER i8i 

tiny blanket and lay down with his little mocca- 
sins protruding toward the fire. Jimmie patted 
him kindly. He was delighted when we noticed 
the boy. We sat around the fire smoking and 
pursuing a somewhat difficult conversation. 
After several false starts amid much laughter, 
Jimmie understood that we were trying to find 
out his name, and he told us: Jimmie Etchoo- 
gah. The other man as near as we could get it 
was Charlbogin Etzeeah. The name of the lit- 
tle boy has escaped me. When we awoke in the 
morning they had already gone. 

On the third day in the middle of the after- 
noon the current increased its pace, and the in- 
variable dirt banks suddenly gave place to low 
walls of a curious conglomerate rock, full of fos- 
sils. Our hearts began to beat, for we thought 
we were upon the Falls. We came to the first 
rapid, and after making sure that there was 
quiet water below, shot it without trouble. We 
called it the Grumbler, from the curious sound 
it made as of an angry man muttering under his 
breath. Below it, despite our hopes, the river 
widened out and proceeded as smoothly as ever. 
We figured that we covered close on seventy 
miles to-day. 

The day that followed was a strenuous one. 
We now met a little rapid on nearly every bend, 



iSz NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

and six miles after breaking camp we were 
stopped by a bad one, so bad that we were afraid 
to risk the rotten dug-out in its big billows. 
Instead, we laboriously let her down on a line 
close to the shore. I should say that the Ser- 
pent was made out of the trunk of a giant cotton- 
wood, and we could scarcely lift her between us. 
The rocks ran out into innumerable reefs, and 
such was the damage to her bottom we decided 
it would be safer thereafter, as well as a world 
less trouble, to run whatever we came to. 

One rapid followed another all day. Some- 
times our pulses would quicken at the sight of 
the waves leaping in the sun a mile ahead, but 
more often we came upon them suddenly around 
a bend. We no sooner got through one than 
the roar of the next smote on our ears. Each 
rapid offered its own set of difficult and fascinat- 
ing problems; each one scared us thoroughly in 
the prospect and exhilarated us in the descent. 
We landed at the top in each case, walking 
down the shore to pick our channel and to make 
sure of quiet water below. It was always our 
endeavor to steer a middle course between the 
big waves of the main channel and the rocks at 
either side. We had many a close shave. 

As this went on we became anxious. It was 
easy enough to go down, but how about the com- 
ing back? We had to return to the Fort by 



^ 



THE UNEXPLORED RIVER [183 

the fifteenth or stay in until mid-winter. More- 
over we had had bad luck as to fish and game 
and were already upon short rations of bacon. 
At lunch-time at the head of a rapid we debated 
whether it would be better to leave the dug-out 
and make a dash down the shore with light 
packs. But we knew not what obstacles might 
lie in the way of a land journey. We finally 
decided to continue down the river to the end 
of that day, come what might, and then, if there 
was no sign of the Falls, to turn back next 
morning. 

At the head of each rapid there was a moment 
of painful indecision while we were deciding 
which side to land on. Of course if we landed 
on the wrong side it meant a long pull back 
against the current and crossing to the other 
side. Shortly after making our decision to go 
on we came to something worse than any we 
had passed. It roared away down out of sight 
around a bend. We delayed a second too long 
in choosing a landing and got nipped in the cur- 
rent. Then we had to come about and paddle 
like fiends for the shore. We made it, but the 
instant she touched, the force of the current over- 
turned her. However, we sprang out and saved 
everything dry except a paddle that was swept 
away. 

My partner stayed with the boat while I made 



1 84 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

my way down the shore. I was very depressed 
for I could see nearly a mile of it ahead, and 
there was no channel on either side or in the 
middle; the rocks stuck up everywhere, tearing 
the water to tatters. My own way was none too 
easy, for in places the current washed the smooth 
base of the rocky walls, and I had to wade up 
to my middle, clawing at the rock, until I 
rounded the point. The farther I went the 
worse the rapids became. Even if we did get 
down, there remained the problem of getting 
up again. 

It was bitter to have to confess defeat at this 
late day. Over and over without success I tried 
to contrive some scheme to spin out our scanty 
grub. All this time I was rounding the out- 
side of a wide bend, and the view ahead was 
consequently opening up yard by yard. Pres- 
ently I became aware that there was something 
new there. The river was blocked by a rock 
wall sliced off as by a knife. Only in one other 
place had I ever seen such a smooth, straight face 
of rock — in the gorge below Niagara. My heart 
gave a great jump, and game leg and all, I 
started to run. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE GRAND GOAL OF OUR LABORS 

AS I ran over the stones and the bend opened 
up, soon there was no further room for 
doubt; before me there was no more river; 
it stepped off into space ; it ceased to be. I mod- 
erated my pace to enjoy the thing in anticipation. 
The river here was bordered by a flat terrace of 
rock, manifestly overflowed at certain seasons, 
and pitted all over by the action of the water. 
Approaching the brink, the rapid smoothed its 
wild tumbling a little, as if gathering its forces 
for the great leap, and over the edge itself it 
slipped smoothly. 

In the midst of our discouragement we had 
been upon the very goal I But it was worth the 
anxiety to be surprised like that. In describing 
how we were caught in the current above I do 
not mean to convey that we were almost carried 
over the falls, for as a matter of fact there were 

185 



1 86 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

several back-waters alongshore in which we 
could have landed. Indeed, out of one of these 
eddies I rescued the paddle we had lost over- 
board. 

I stopped a few feet from the brink to enjoy 
the superb prospect of the gorge below. It was 
true that the cataract muffled its own voice ; even 
here I could scarcely hear it. After the invari- 
able flatness and tameness of all the country 
above, this sudden cleft in the world impressed 
one stunningly. It had the same dramatic ef- 
fect as the passion of a quiet man. Again, I 
can only compare it to Niagara on a smaller 
scale, but Niagara as it must have burst on La 
Salle's eyes, sans tourist-hotels, power-houses, 
and railway bridges. Its charm was in its inso- 
lent wildness. 

As at Niagara the bordering cliffs rose per- 
pendicularly, as if hewn by a single mighty 
stroke, but here they were of cream-colored stone 
instead of gray. Fragments fallen from above in 
the course of ages buttressed each cliff along its 
base, making a steep and narrow shore, which 
supported a line of spruces. These spruces, 
protected from the winds of the world and cease- 
lessly watered by the spray of the Falls, grew to 
a superb height and perfection of outline. The 
dark, rich green of the branches made a striking 



GRAND GOAL OF OUR LABORS 187 

and harmonious combination with the creamy- 
yellow rock behind. Between the walls the 
brown river went down, embossed with a rococo 
design in soapy foam. 

Then I went to the extreme edge and looked 
over. A deep, dull roar smote on my ears, and 
I became aware of the trembling of the rock. 
What can I say of what I saw? I was bewil- 
dered and satisfied. All the way we had feared 
perhaps that only a cascade wilder than any 
above would be our reward, or perhaps a wide, 
straggling series of falls. It was neither. The 
entire river gathered itself up, and made a single 
plunge into deep water below. The river nar- 
rowed down to less than five hundred feet, and 
the volume of water was tremendous. The drop 
was about one hundred feet. The water was of 
the color of strong tea, and as it descended it 
drew over its brown sheen a lovely, creamy 
fleece of foam. 

After my first look I remembered my partner 
remorsefully. He should have been there be- 
side me. But after looking for the Falls at every 
bend above, this was the one place we had not 
expected to find them, for we had been told posi- 
tively that there was no rapid immediately above 
the big drop. I hastened back as I had come, 
but it was a long way, and I must have been gone 



1 88 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

an hour and a half in all. He was sitting be- 
side the Serpent nursing his knees disconsolately. 
I could not resist the temptation to draw a long 
face, and shake my head. 

" No go, old man," I said lugubriously. 
" There's more than a mile of it, and no chan- 
nel!" 

His face became gloomier and gloomier. 

" Besides," I added, " at the foot of it, there's 
a hundred foot drop." 

The reaction was comical to see. His jaw 
dropped, and then seeing that I was laughing 
at him, he threw up his cap and shouted. We 
shook hands on it and foolishly clapped each 
other on the back. Then stopping only long 
enough to pull the Serpent out of harm's way, 
we hastened back to have another look. 

Upon looking around us, we discovered that 
by great good luck we had landed at the end of 
the regular Indian portage. A trail through 
the bush began only a few yards from where our 
boat was lying. It gave evidence of not having 
been used for several years, and amidst the down 
timber we lost it more than once. Nevertheless 
it was better than wading around the promon- 
tories alongshore. As we went we broke 
branches to show the way back. The trail 
passed around the Falls, most of its travelers ap- 



GRAND GOAL OF OUR LABORS 189 

parently not having been Interested In the won- 
ders of nature. When we came opposite the 
deep, dull voice of the place, we broke through 
the trees, and slid down the bank to the terrace 
of rock overhanging the brink. There we sat 
prepared to gaze our fill. 

The second sight of the Falls struck no less 
hard than the first. You have the feeling In ap- 
proaching again that it cannot possibly be as fine 
as you expect, and behold! when you look It Is 
even more wonderful. Imagine, if you can, mil- 
lions upon millions of gallons of root beer with 
its rich creamy foam forever pouring into that 
great hole in the world without filling it. Had 
we had the time we could have sat for hours 
merely watching the tight little curls of spray 
that puffed up like jets of smoke out of the face 
of the falling water, and then spreading and de- 
scending, slowly merged Into the white cloud 
that rolled about the foot of the Falls. This 
cloud itself billowed up In successive undula- 
tions like full draperies, only to spread out and 
vanish In the sunshine. We launched a log In 
the current, and watched It precipitate Itself 
over the brink, Imagining for the moment that It 
was the Serpent with us in it. 

Though grub was so short, we quickly made 
up our minds to lay over the next day at the 



190 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

Falls and photograph It from every possible 
point of view. We examined the gorge to see 
the possibilities of approach from below, and 
found that the rocky shores I have spoken of 
would bring us within a hundred feet of the 
cataract. Nearer than that the walls of rock 
rose sheer and smooth out of the deep water. 
The Indians have a fable of a cave behind the 
wall of water that Is heaped with whitening 
bones. That may be, but at least at this stage of 
water there was no human possibility of finding 
out. 

The Alexandra Falls were discovered by 
Bishop Bompas on a tour of evangelization 
among the Indians in 1872 and named by him in 
honor of the then Princess of Wales. He esti- 
mated the height at a hundred and fifty feet. In 
1887 Mr. R. G. McConnell of the Canadian 
Geological Survey, surveyed the Hay River 
from its mouth back to the Falls. He gives the 
height at only eighty-five feet, as measured from 
a single reading of the aneroid barometer. 
Knowing of Mr. McConnell's visit we made no 
attempt to measure the drop, but after reading 
his report I wish that we had, because the height 
appeared greater to us than he gives. On the 
other hand it Is not unlikely that the thought 
is fathered by the wish. 



GRAND GOAL OF OUR LABORS 191 

Of the formation of the Falls, Mr. McConnell 
says: "They owe their origin to precisely the 
same cause as that which produces the famous 
falls at Niagara, viz., the superposition of hard 
limestone on soft shales, and the consequent un- 
dermining and destruction of the former effected 
by the rapid erosion and removal of the support- 
ing beds. I was surprised to find that the rate 
of retrocession, dating both falls from the same 
period, has been almost identical. The Niagara 
Falls are generally regarded as having receded 
six miles since they were brought into existence 
by the elevation of the country at the end of the 
glacial period, and on Hay River the distance 
between the point at which the limestone band 
makes its fiist appearance and the lower falls 
is almost exactly five miles, and between the 
same point and the upper falls six miles. The 
equality of work done by the two streams is, 
however, a mere coincidence, as the factors in 
the two cases are entirely different. The vol- 
ume of water which falls over the precipice at 
Niagara is many times greater than that car- 
ried by Hay River, while its erosive power is 
somewhat less on account of its somewhat greater 
purity." 

We camped that night on top of the bank 
above where our boat lay. We found a small 



192 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

clearing there, that from the difference in the 
size of the trees that had been cut and those im- 
mediately surrounding, we judged to be between 
twelve and fifteen years old. The little trees 
had been cut with strokes from one side only as 
white men chop, and we guessed that we were 
upon the spot where our last white predecessors 
had made camp in the year of the Klondike 
rush. Clearing the underbrush for our fire, in 
the center of this open space we found half 
buried in the earth the rotting, half-burned logs 
of the last fire that had been made there. 

In searching for wood near camp we stumbled 
on a grim human memento in the form of a 
grave. Heavy logs had been laid across it to 
keep the coyotes from digging, and a circle of 
rough-hewn palings planted all around, most 
of which had rotted through and fallen over. 
I examined all the palings for a mark either 
carved or written, and since there was none 
we judged it an Indian grave. Long ago the 
Indians from the south met their northern breth- 
ren at this portage to trade meat for furs. 

Bright and early next morning we were back 
at the Falls. They, face north by east, and the 
sun rising over the edge of the gorge shone on 
the falling water with its fleece of foam in daz- 
zling splendor. There was now a vivid rainbow 



GRAND GOAL OF OUR LABORS 193 

athwart the white cloud below. I have not in 
the least succeeded in conveying a just impres- 
sion of the beauty of the place. I have not men- 
tioned that all the second growth poplar which 
thickly bordered the stream above the Falls was 
now dressed in gorgeous orange and red. The 
falling water, the sky, the vivid shores, all this 
wealth of color bathed in the exquisite delicacy 
of morning light in the North added another to 
the gallery of pictures that we will return to in 
delighted spirit until we die. 

For the first hour or so after the sun mounted 
the Heavens the conditions were ideal for pho- 
tography, but to the west a heavy bank of cloud 
threatened the afternoon, and after making a 
few snap-shots at the Falls, the rapids above, 
and the gorge below, we hastened to explore a 
way to descend into the gorge. 

Regaining the portage trail we had not trav- 
eled far upon it, when we were astonished to 
come upon a ruinous log shack. After a cabin 
in the woods has been abandoned to a few win- 
ters it is hard to tell whether it is fifteen or fifty 
years old. I do not know if this shack was built 
by our Klondikers ; it looked much older, but it 
had been used by them. The roughly-hewn 
door was comparatively new and unweathered, 
and on the inside as fresh as if it had been written 



194 ^^W RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

earlier that very day were two notes In pencil. 
Evidently the party had divided forces, and this 
was their rendezvous. The notes were unad- 
dressed, undated, and unsigned. The first note 
as I remember It ran. 

"The mice got In the flour. Be sure to 
spring-pole the bags hereafter. Waited for you 
two days. J but you're slow! " 

Beneath was written the answer. 

" C but you're quick! Had a hell of a 

time with the canoe. She broke In every rapid, 
and we had to stop and fix her." 

These light-hearted and profane speeches 
came with a queer effect down the lapse of years 
there In the howling wilderness. 

As we made along the trail we could not resist 
the temptation every now and then of pushing 
through the bush to the edge of the gorge for an- 
other look at the Falls. All along the edge were 
ominous fissures, where great pieces of the cliff 
had detached themselves preparatory to plung- 
ing down. From the look of the gorge one 
would think It a matter of daily change instead 
of the slow work of ages. We could not help 
but step very gingerly on these dangerous islands, 
though there was small likelihood of our pygmy 
weight disturbing the balance of such masses. 
From one of the apparently teetering monoliths 



GRAND GOAL OF OUR LABORS 195 

we obtained our most complete picture of the 
cataract. 

The trail cut across a wide bend of the gorge, 
and as we proceeded, It became ever farther to 
the edge. The way led over a flat, wooded 
plain, marshy In spots, and elsewhere carpeted 
with delicious wild cranberries. We held to 
the trail for a mile or more, forbearing any ex- 
cursions, but then we began to wonder If it was 
necessary to go so far In order to come back 
again, and once more we struck through the trees 
to see if we could not find a break In the cllfif 
that would let us down to the bottom. As we 
approached the edge a renewed great roaring of 
water struck on our ears. We looked at each 
other, speculating on what was saving for us 
now. > 

As we came on the edge, and looked down, 
there below us lay another waterfall! Verily, 
Fortune was generous to us! We had almost 
despaired of finding the one, and here was an- 
other thrown In for good measure. It was of 
lesser height than the one above, exceedingly 
beautiful nevertheless, and worth coming a long 
way to see on its own account. It burst on us 
as a complete surprise. It is true, someone had 
told us the Indians reported that there were two 
falls, but we had put It aside with all the misin- 



196 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

formation from the same source. The second 
fall lies so far off the trail that I doubt if many- 
even of the Indians have seen it. Bishop Bom- 
pas apparently missed it on his journey for he 
makes no mention of it. 

From the point where we first saw it, we ob- 
tained an excellent picture of the second falls, 
and in that its striking and unusual formation can 
be made out. In the center is a convex horseshoe 
over which the water falls prettily all around, 
while at either side the precipice has partly 
broken down, and the white water dashes over 
the successive ledges with wild effect. It makes 
a louder noise than the upper fall, if not so deep. 
The drop is about fifty feet. It is a mile below 
the first fall, and hidden by the intervening 
bend. 

There was no possible way of scrambling 
down the cliffs visible from this point, and there 
was nothing for it but to return to the portage 
trail. It carried us still a mile and a half down 
the river before coming to the edge to descend. 
There was a very fine view of the gorge from 
here. It was narrower, and the opposite wall 
ran out into a bold promontory, around which 
the river swung and disappeared. On this side 
the cliff has been worn into a sloping attitude, 
making a natural and easy descent for the port- 




.5^ 






^>;. 



.-;v-3 




The entire river gathereJ it.seit'aiul made a single plunge 
into deep water below 



GRAND GOAL OF OUR LABORS 197 

age. The bottom of the gorge here, with Its 
clean cut walls and steep slopes of neatly-broken 
stone, has a fresh new look, as of something just 
turned out. 

It was a long, hard scramble back over the 
heaped stones to the foot of the second fall. My 
partner and I were about equally disabled, for 
while I was still enduring the pain of mal de 
raquette his shoe-packs had worn through and 
his feet were imperfectly tied up in pieces of 
canvas. Harder than the stones to cross was a 
great drift of saturated clay that had slid down 
from a fault in the cliffs and that threatened 
to engulf us to the knees at every step. We 
found bear and wolf tracks in the gorge and 
assumed that the animals were attracted by the 
fish, which were cast up dead and injured in 
the eddies. 

By the time we reached the lower fall the sky 
had become completely overcast, and our pic- 
tures are somewhat blurred. Beside the fall 
there was a ledge on which we sat and could 
have dangled our feet in the wildest of the tor- 
rent, had we been so minded. In the picture 
taken from that point the water appears to be 
tumbling down on the beholder's head. One 
must make liberal allowances for the feeble liter- 
alness of the camera in general, and the imper- 



198 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

fections of this picture in particular, to gain any 
idea of the magnificence of the real efifect of the 
spectacle. 

Across the river the wall of rock at this point 
had been hollowed out, making an alcove as 
round and as regular as a room in a round tower. 
The whole history of the double falls was writ- 
ten on the smooth face of the rock. On top was 
the wide belt of lime-stone with a sub-stratum 
of shale through which the main fall had worn 
its way, while beneath lay another hard layer 
presumably superposed in turn on more shale 
through which the second was eating. 

Arriving at last at the foot of the principal 
cataract, we made our last stand with the camera 
about fifty yards from the falling column of 
water. There deafened by the roar and blinded 
by the spray, we experienced our first just sense 
of the awful might of it and our own pitiful 
insignificance. Everything definite was lost in 
the mist, and we seemed to be surrounded and 
overwhelmed by a great presence. The canyon 
reverberated and shook with the continuous roar 
of its voice until our brains seemed to reel under 
the pressure. 

There seemed to be small chance of getting a 
picture from this point, nevertheless we patiently 
essayed it, waiting for a moment when the mist 



GRAND GOAL OF OUR LABORS 199 

blew to the other side in the capricious gusts 
that swooped on us from nowhere, and holding 
a handkerchief over the lens until the moment 
of exposure. We were soon drenched ourselves 
by surely the largest, coldest drops that the skin 
ever shrank from. One of the pictures is a suc- 
cess. The original gives a better impression of 
the majesty of the falls than any we took, though 
unfortunately it is in too low a key to reproduce 
satisfactorily. 

It was now, I suppose, after two o'clock and 
we suddenly became conscious of the fact that 
we were famishing. Our lunch was cached at 
the brink of the falls not two hundred feet from 
where we stood, but six miles away by the route 
we had come, half of it the hardest kind of 
going. It was a painful situation. We gazed 
up at the cliffs wishing for wings, or adhesive 
feet, a friend to let down a rope ladder, or some 
other little accommodation of that nature. But 
nothing happened, and we set about searching 
the walls of the gorge, determined to skin up the 
bare face of it rather than go back and climb 
around by the longer way. 

Again Fortune displayed a most flattering 
partiality to the Explorers, as we now referred 
to ourselves (capital E, if you please). About 
a furlong from the falls we saw a hole in the 



200 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

wall, half way up. A huge slice of the yellow 
rock had started to fall outwards from the cliff, 
but changed its mind and hung there, looking 
from below like a gigantic coffin resting on a 
catafalque, the whole placed sidewise against 
the wall of the gorge. The hole was a narrow, 
vertical crack extending all the way up to the 
top of the gorge. There was a stiffs climb re- 
quired to reach the bottom of it, and in order 
to save my bad leg as much as possible, my part- 
ner volunteered to have a look while I waited 
below. Presently he hailed me, and I joined 
him. 

It proved to be a real cavern. Red rasp- 
berries grew profusely about the entrance; a 
fairly well-beaten path of bear tracks led directly 
into the hole. Within it was an extraordinary 
place. The path dipped down almost into the 
bowels of the earth it seemed and then rose be- 
yond as by an easy pair of stairs directly to the 
summit of the cliff. All this was revealed in 
a mysterious half light that filtered down from 
far above. Within the door grew wild black 
currant bushes, laden with the delicious fruit. 
The bottom of the hole was full of solid Ice, 
which had been there very likely as long as the 
hole Itself. Most extraordinary of all, half way 
through our passage a great piece of rock had 



GRAND GOAL OF OUR LABORS 201 

fallen out of the outside wall, leaving an oriel 
window to light the place, through which we 
gazed at the river below. What a place to 
appeal to a boy's imagination ! Thinking of this 
we christened It the Secret Stair. 

In a few minutes we were back on the little 
terrace of rock beside the falls that we consid- 
ered our own. While I prepared lunch, my 
indefatigable partner made a flying trip back to 
the camp for another roll of films. In moving 
about the fire, putting on the pot, and toasting 
the bread In regular camp routine, I would mo- 
mentarily forget where I was, and It gave me 
a fine start to find myself suddenly looking over 
the hundred-foot cliff. On the extreme edge 
grew a bush, to the branches of which clung the 
rotting remains of bits of string and pieces of 
cloth, relics of the tobacco bags, handkerchiefs, 
and other trifles left by the Indians as propitia- 
tory offerings to the Spirit of the Falls. 

I took my partner's picture while he ate his 
lunch under this sacred bush, and he took mine 
gazing pensively at the cataract. Afterwards 
the sun came out full again, and he went back 
for some pictures of the Secret Stair. While I 
waited for him, I cut our initials In the face of 
the rock some four feet above the water line, 
and fifteen feet or so from the brink. It was 



202 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

the only time we were guilty of this weakness, 
but Explorers always do it, we had heard. 

H. F. 

A. E. 

1911, 



CHAPTER XV 

HOMEWARD BOUND 

THIS was the night of August 29th. It 
will be remembered that the trader at 
Fort Vermilion had promised to hold the 
launch for us until September 15th. We had 
therefore sixteen days in which to make the re- 
turn journey. It had taken us eight to come 
down, but going back was different. The cur- 
rent which was plus before would now be minus, 
and instead of Aleck's assistance over the portage 
we would have to return with our outfit on our 
backs. 

It rained dismally all night, but we were snug 
enough under a shelter of poplar boughs, eked 
out by the one tarpaulin we had brought. Every 
unnecessary article had been sent back from the 
Hay River by Aleck, including the tent. The 
Hudson's Bay blankets themselves will shed a 
(deal of water, and it is customary to stretch an 

extra blanket, if you have one, as a roof in rainy 

203 



204 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

weather. Once wet, of course, the blankets are 
equally hard to dry. When the wet finally pene- 
trates through all the layers to the traveler's skin, 
he begins to be discouraged. This had not hap- 
pened to us yet. 

In the morning we turned our faces up river 
saying, " Homeward bound!" to each other in 
the same sentimental tones, I suppose, that all 
travelers use under the circumstances. It was 
with a queer, mixed feeling of pleasure and re- 
gret that we started. The thought of everything 
that awaited us outside was delightful, but we 
hadn't had enough of the other thing yet. We 
were loath to turn our backs on the North. It 
was over two months now since we had slept be- 
tween sheets or eaten off a tablecloth. How- 
ever, though it was " Homeward bound," we 
still had something to do. A thousand miles, 
more or less, separated us from Edmonton and 
the busy world. 

We had brought a tracking line for up-stream 
work, a thin, stout cord a hundred yards in 
length. As long as the shores were hard, the 
way presented no special difficulties, though my 
partner was greatly handicapped by the lack of 
footwear. We sacrificed a canvas dunnage bag 
to make wrappings for his feet, but it was sur- 
prising how quick he wore through even half a 




We could have dangled our feet in the wildest of the torrents 




The second falls from below 



HOMEWARD BOUND 205 

dozen thicknesses. The wonder is, how the skin 
of the sole lasts as well as it does. 

One of us traveled ahead with the line, while 
the other remained with a pole to prod the Ser- 
pent when she drifted too close in. The rapids, 
too, were easier to ascend than we expected, 
though of course it was very slow work. Then 
it was a case of wading for both of us, one pull- 
ing, one pushing. The Serpent had a playful 
little trick when she got the current under her 
quarter of shooting out into midstream and hang- 
ing there while she made up her mind whether 
to capsize herself, or pull over the man who was 
desperately clinging to the rope. He, mean- 
while, was trying to keep his footing on slippery 
round stones in two feet or so of rushing water, 
but there were no accidents. 

In the smooth stretches we discovered later 
that one of us could sit in the boat and steer, 
while the other went ahead with the line over 
his shoulder, but this only applied when the 
shores were moderately good. 

On one occasion when I had the line, coming 
around a point I was startled to find a corpulent 
little gentleman blocking my path immediately 
in front of me. I stopped. He looked me over 
with a cold and scornful eye, and coolly turning, 
waddled off with insolent deliberation through 



2o6 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

the willows, rattling his quills like castanets as a 
gentle hint to me not to follow. It was the 
first porcupine I ever met face to face. The 
gun, of course, was back in the boat. We would 
have relished a little fresh meat. 

It must not be supposed that tracking a boat 
up-stream is any gentle promenade. That track- 
ing line was like a living creature inspired with 
malice against us. We swore that it entered 
into a conspiracy with all the jutting rocks and 
snags in our path to defeat us. The Serpent was 
in the combine, too; whenever the line caught, 
she turned and stuck her nose stupidly into the 
bank. The tow-man was kept busy shaking the 
line free and keeping it taut. He had to keep 
going at all costs, sliding, scrambling, flounder- 
ing through the oozy mud and over the stones 
and the fallen trees. The man in the canoe had 
no easy time either; hard and unremitting pad- 
dling was his portion, and when she made up her 
mind to run into the bank, run into it she gener- 
ally did, though he broke his arms to keep her 
out. 

On the second day as we left the stony country 
behind, the problem was further complicated 
by the willow bushes that grew thickly along the 
shores. It seemed to us that they had been 
placed there solely for the purpose of hindering 



HOMEWARD BOUND 207 

us. In turn we tried crawling around the out- 
side, and plunging through the middle, and 
climbing above them, but in the end some insig- 
nificant twig would be sure to get a strangle hold 
on the rope. The willow wands were all bent 
inclining down-stream by the current, and as 
we were bound in the other direction, each stalk 
was like a hook to catch the rope on. 

These were the low shores that have been 
mentioned; along the high shores, it will be re- 
membered, the pine trees lay half-fallen into 
the water, offering an insurmountable series of 
obstacles. I should not care to state how many 
hundred times we were obliged to cross the river 
and try the other side. Finally we gave up the 
line and tried poling, but the bottom was soft 
in spots, the poles went in up to the hilts, and 
we nearly cast ourselves overboard. In the end 
we were reduced to paddling against the cur- 
rent, which was very slow, but at least steady 
and much less trying on the temper. 

On the afternoon of this day we played hide 
and seek with a bear behind an island, but he 
won. The bears with their queer, half-human 
foot-prints had made a regular beaten track 
along the banks. It was the plentiful moose- 
berries and currants that attracted them. We 
treated ourselves to black currant jam. The 



2o8 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

moose-berry, sometimes called the " high-bush '* 
cranberry, is something like a red currant, but 
it grows singly or in twos upon its stem, and it 
has a seed like a tomato, but larger. It is not 
highly regarded as an article of human diet, but 
we found its acrid tartness very refreshing, when 
there were no currants or gooseberries to be had 
along the trail. 

On the third morning we ascended the last 
rapid, the one we had called the " Grumbler." 
The next four days are blank in the notebook. 
'As a matter of fact we were working too hard 
to make notes. From dawn to dark we pushed 
against the tireless current, crossing from side to 
side to get the advantage of any slack water, 
which was not much, below the points. I do not 
suppose the current was ever more than two 
miles an hour, but whereas the two miles had 
been added to our own four going down, it was 
now subtracted from it, and it seemed more. 
The long stretches of the river were the worst, 
we seemed to overhaul the distant points with 
such a discouraging slowness. There were days 
when it seemed to us as if we had made scarcely 
ten miles. 

We " spelled " twice a day to eat, making 
four meals in all, a general rule on the trail. 
Dinner was in the middle of the afternoon, so 









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HOMEWARD BOUND 209 

that the cook should not be obliged to work in 
the dark. Afterwards we paddled as long as 
we could see, and this was always our strongest 
stretch. We topped off the day with cocoa and 
buttered toast by the fire, and then to sleep — • 
such sleep! We will never forget those fine 
evenings, particularly an hour at the end of the 
seventh day. 

The river was like a noble corridor carpeted 
with brown velvet, and its walls hung with rich 
tapestries of foliage. An indescribable dreamy 
loveliness enveloped the whole, most like the 
quality with which Corot has invested the rivers 
of his pictures. But even Corot never conveys 
the exquisite quality of the light of our own 
Northern evenings, because he never saw one. 
It is as brilliant as it is tender. And the world 
was as still as sleep. The greatest charm as ever 
was that we shared it with none. 

On the second day of the down voyage we 
had caught sight of a log shack on the river 
bank, which strongly excited our curiosity, but 
we had left the investigation of it to our return. 
We reached it now. Odd it was to see the door 
with a white porcelain knob and a keyhole ! The 
key hung beside the door-jamb, and we took the 
liberty of peeping inside. We judged that it 
was a white man's house, or at least a breed's, 



210 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

because there was a bedstead inside, made in 
imitation of ours, and a certain order and con- 
venience in all the arrangements. It contained 
all the owner's winter gear. There were four 
pairs of child's snow-shoes in graduated sizes and 
a tiny fur-coat. We learned from Gus Clark, 
however, that this was the winter residence of a 
Slavi with more advanced notions than the rest 
of the tribe. 

As we ascended the river we began to meet 
the Indians again. We saluted our friend 
Jimmy Etchoogah in passing, but could not stop 
to hob-nob with him again. Later we met the 
Blanket, our jolly, disreputable friend, but alasl 
how changed. He let us know by the most 
frightful grimaces and contortions that he was 
desperately sick. We suspected, however, that 
he had taken counsel with the young redskin 
who had taken us in before, and our hearts were 
hardened. I gave the Blanket a pill for his 
pain, and we went our way. It occurred to us 
more than once on this voyage that our last white 
predecessors on the river, the jolly Klondikers, 
must have carried well-filled flasks with them, 
and for thirteen years the Slavis have been telling 
the rising generation about the wonderful stom- 
ach-warming qualities of the white man's medi- 
cine. 



HOMEWARD BOUND 211 

The Hay River is like the Slavi Indians' Main 
Street. All day long they paddle up and down 
searching the shores, like show-windows, for 
bargains in feathers and fur. Every point of 
vantage along the river is decorated with their 
tepee poles, that they use as they come and go, 
and we were continually coming across their 
" caches " elevated on poles, or hung from the 
branches in bags made of birch-bark. 

In connection with their caches there is a story 
told of the Slavi Indians. The Canadian gov- 
ernment is carefully guarding the last herd of 
wild buffalo who range west of Great Slave 
Lake. To this end it is anxious to keep down 
the wolves, but in spite of the bounties it offered, 
the Indians would not bestir themselves to kill 
the wolves. The commissioner who was sent to 
investigate the matter after endless trouble elic- 
ited this story from the head man : 

" A long time ago the wolf was the man's dog, 
and they hunted the moose together and shared 
the meat equally. But the man began to take 
more than his share, and the wolf was angry. 
He began to hunt for himself and he found he 
did not need the man's help. Ever since then 
the man and the wolf have hunted the moose 
separately. But before they parted they made 
a treaty. The man agreed never to kill the wolf, 



212 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

and the wolf agreed never to break into the 
man's caches." 

The eighth day was one of ups and downs. 
We had a strong head wind to add to our hin- 
drances, nevertheless we seemed to be making 
good time at first. With a view to drawing a 
rough map we had made notes of the river going 
down, and by these we measured our progress on 
the return. But something went wrong that 
eighth day; we paddled all day without being 
able to raise an island that should have been 
only six miles from " the barked trees." By 
nightfall we were very much cast down. All 
our calculations were out, and at this rate we 
might still be two or three days' journey from 
the " horse-track." 

It must be remembered that the river had 
fallen nearly two feet since we went down, and 
the look of the shores had therefore changed a 
good deal. At dark we landed on a stony beach 
that suggested nothing to us until we suddenly 
stumbled on the remains of a fire — built against 
a pile of stones, as we built fires. Hope sprang 
up again, and my partner scrambled up the steep 
bank. He found what he was looking for, the 
tree he had blazed on the way down. It was 
our first spelling-place on the river, only eigh- 
teen miles from the horse-track. We went to 
bed rejoicing. 



HOMEWARD BOUND 213 

" Horse-track " refers, of course, to the trail 
over to the Peace. If a settlement ever springs 
up on the site of the Indian village that will be 
its name. We arrived about two o'clock. The 
village was greatly reduced in size, for the fall 
hunting had begun, and instead of twenty tepees 
there were only six or so. Our arrival created a 
veritable sensation. The children, crying and 
pointing, ran along the bank, and every man left 
in the place came to witness our disembarkation. 
A great deal was said to us, presumably in con- 
gratulation, but we could only smile amiably 
and shake our heads. 

It was not that they were especially glad to 
see us, they were merely astonished that we came 
back at all. The lower river with its rapids 
and falls seems to have a superstitious terror for 
them. Some of them had been over to the Fort 
in the meantime and had told Gus Clark that 
he need never expect to see us again. No white 
man had ever come up their river. Gus merely 
told them that they didn't know yet what white 
men could do. 

Our stay in the village was short. Our first 
care was to get moccasins for our suffering feet. 
Afterwards we spread everything we owned out 
on the grass to decide what we could do without 
and to apportion the loads we were to carry. A 
kind of Christmas tree party succeeded. To the 



214 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

astonished Indians we handed out veritable 
riches: there was thirty pounds of flour, small 
bags of rice, beans and sugar, besides clothing, 
cooking utensils, and cartridges. One man 
seemed disposed to drink the oil of citronella, 
so we thought it better to throw away the medi- 
cines. The gill of whiskey that remained we 
drank ourselves, to avoid creating any hard feel- 
ing. An Indian secured the empty flask and sat 
smelling it with a look of faraway longing in his 
eyes. 

We did our best to make an equable distribu- 
tion, handing out to one then another, and I hope 
no one was overlooked. The flour went to the 
wife of a man who had crippled himself by a 
bullet wound. A boy of eight was their sole 
support while the father was incapacitated; he 
brought in a rabbit while we were there. Tata- 
teecha Cadetloon, the patriarch of the tribe, got 
the last of my tobacco. What we regretted most 
to part with were our good paddles, especially 
the one my partner had made out of a birch slab, 
the best paddle ever seen in that country — but 
with what else we had, we could not carry them. 

The Indians received these gifts from Heaven 
exactly as a small child takes a penny from a 
stranger, snatching at it with a look of strong 
suspicion. They were well-mannered though, 



HOMEWARD BOUND 215 

they asked for nothing, but each waited until he 
was called up to receive his share. They are a 
strange mixture of the man and the child. One 
man received our gifts with rather a shamed air 
as if it was beneath him to accept favors from a 
pair of white vagabonds. 

They are so like us and so different, they af- 
ford an endless and amusing study. It was in- 
teresting to watch the men among themselves, 
their suave dignity, their good-humor, their con- 
siderate politeness. We could never quite make 
out If these fine qualities were genuine, or if it 
was a bit of play-acting for our benefit. When 
we addressed these fine gentlemen they instantly 
became as shy and sullen as children. 

After the distribution we made ready for our 
long walk. We had reduced the cooking out- 
fit to one pail, a frying pan, two cups, and two 
spoons. Food was restricted to flour, bacon, tea, 
sugar, and prunes sufficient for five days. But 
with our three pairs of blankets, besides guns, 
ammunition, camera, films, and miscellanies, we 
still had a good load apiece. The most scientific 
way to pack this was a problem. The Indians 
found our eflforts highly amusing. They are 
rarely tickled when they see a white man at a 
loss. We finally bundled the things up roughly 
and started, intending to consider the problem at 



2i6 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

our leisure on the trail. We left the village to 
the tune of laughter, I am sorry to say. Such 
is the fate of philanthropists! 

We had between thirty-five and forty pounds 
each. That is nothing of a pack in the North, 
but it seemed a lot to our unaccustomed backs. 
We made twelve miles before turning in that 
night, and reached our last spelling-place of the 
way over. It was necessary for us to camp in 
the same places we had used before, as these 
were the only water-holes we knew. Bed was 
grateful to us that night, though it was a par- 
ticularly hard one. 

We improved our packs before starting out 
again. After several experiments we adopted 
the army style of rolling the blankets in the 
shape of a horse collar through which we stuck 
our heads. The weight hung from one shoul- 
der, and into the narrow end which hung down 
under the other arm we each tied a bundle con- 
taining the rest of the stuff. This could be 
shifted from side to side as we tired. We kept 
well ahead of our schedule on the second day 
and camped at the east end of the larger lake. 

With this night our troubles began. It rained 
steadily on our defenseless heads, and by morn- 
ing everything was drenched, and the blankets 
Heaven knows how many pounds heavier to 



HOMEWARD BOUND 217 

carry! That was a cheerless morning. We 
could scarcely decide whether it was worse to 
lie between wxt blankets with the rain running 
down our necks, or get up to wet clothes, a wet 
breakfast, and a wet world. 

Our way led through the willow bushes bor- 
dering the Meander, each of which favored us 
with a separate cold shower in addition to what 
was falling direct from Heaven. Our wet hands 
became stiff and numb with the cold, and we 
vowed that our first purchases at the Fort should 
be gloves — if we ever got there. Just then it 
seemed very far ofif. This afternoon to our 
astonishment we met a wagon bound for Hay 
River. We tried to make a bargain with the 
Indian to pick us up. Communication was diffi- 
cult, but he made it clear, however, that he de- 
clined to turn around. 

In the afternoon we passed the Meander for 
the last time. Our notebook said two hours' 
march to the next camping-place across the di- 
vide, or say, six miles. It proved to be the long- 
est six miles we ever walked. The way led 
across seemingly endless meadows without a drop 
of water or a tree. The two hours lengthened 
into three, and then four, and our shoulders 
began to feel as if they were telescoped together 
under the weight of the wet blankets. We were 



2i8 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

perishing with hunger and thirst besides. We 
made the place at sunset as weary a pair I expect 
as ever cast their bundles to the ground. Even 
then we couldn't eat until the unfortunate cook 
had baked bread. 

We made our beds under the bare poles of an 
abandoned tepee, which afforded rather an im- 
perfect shelter from the rain. For it rained 
again in the night; we were becoming hardened 
to it now. In the morning we went over our 
loads again and threw away a towel, a bottle of 
tooth-powder, and a little book of philosophy 
that I was always meaning to read. But ab- 
stract philosophy was hardly able to cope with 
the cold, hard facts we were up against now. 

We took to the trail still stiff and weary from 
our exertions of the day before. After we had 
been plodding for a couple of hours, conceive 
of our excitement when we heard, or thought we 
heard, a horse bell approaching from the rear. 
We cast down our packs and bent strained ears 
in the direction of the sound. We heard it and 
we didn't hear it, and our spirits went up and 
down. Finally the Indian and his wagon on 
the way back did actually heave into view. 

We held another parley. For two dollars he 
finally agreed to carry us as far as the Indian 
village where we had camped the first night out 



HOMEWARD BOUND 219 

from the Fort. There his way divided from 
ours. We threw our loads into the wagon and 
climbed after them. Under other conditions 
1-Iding in a springless wagon over what was really 
no more than a pack trail would scarcely be 
considered a joy, but to our weary bones it was 
as good as a sixty-horse motor on asphalt. Again 
luck was with the Explorers! Our driver pre- 
sented us with the towel, the bottle of tooth-pow- 
der, and the book of philosophy. 

He was named Ahcunazie. He had a slender, 
half-clad boy with him, who said never a word 
but looked us over well. There were also three 
rangy, mangy huskies who amused us by their 
resemblance to disreputable human philoso- 
phers. No amount of kicks could discourage 
their thievish propensities ; they merely yelped 
and waited for another chance. 

Conversation en route was impossible, but 
when we stopped for lunch we found that Ahcu- 
nazie was above the average intelligence. He was 
a Beaver Indian and he could also speak Cree. 
We were able to carry on quite an elaborate con- 
versation in signs. Achunazie knew all about us, 
of course, and our journey over, and he graphi- 
cally described Aleck's return journey with the 
sick horse. We learned what we were so anx- 
ious to know; Aleck had brought back the Blun- 



220 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

derbuss. Achunazle suggested that we should 
have hired his wagon and saved all the trouble. 

We reached the parting of the trails about 
five. This village was now wholly abandoned. 
Upon paying Ahcunazie, when he saw that I had 
more money, he suddenly offered to take us the 
remaining twenty-two miles. Five dollars 
clinched the bargain. The boy was put off and 
sent on the other trail with a gun and the three 
dogs. Heaven knows how far the little shaver 
had to walk that night! 

Ahcunazie with great assurance announced 
that he would land us at the Fort before we slept. 
The idea was grateful to us, for our blankets 
were wet and we were heartily sick of bannock 
and bacon. We set ofif at a mad gallop over the 
prairie, Ahcunazie standing up and yelling at his 
horses like a true red-skin. Somewhere in the 
course of this stampede he lost the grimy little 
pillow that was his chief treasure on earth. The 
endurance of the little grass-fed beasts is wonder- 
ful. They had already done forty miles since 
dawn. But it has its limits, and mile by mile they 
visibly failed. We spelled to rest and feed them, 
but the benefit was transitory. Up to the last mo- 
ment Ahcunazie insisted that we could get there 
before he stopped again, but as it became dark 
and cold, with true savage volatility he suddenly 



HOMEWARD BOUND 221 

changed his mind and camped. It was the place 
where we had made our first spell, about twelve 
miles from the settlement. 

It turned bitterly cold, and though my tireless 
partner cut down a big tree and dragged it sec- 
tion by section across an intervening bog, the 
biggest fire could not warm both sides of us at 
once. Ahcunazie dragged his bed so close that he 
caught fire and almost ruined his single blanket. 
All he had beside was a deer-skin that he spread 
beneath him. 

None of us got much sleep. In the course 
of the night we discovered an interesting fact 
that I have not seen remarked elsewhere: viz: 
Indians have nightmares just as we do. Ahcu- 
nazie's groans and cries and mutterings while he 
slept were dreadful to hear. 

We were all glad to get up before dawn. We 
had no sooner started than the rain commenced 
to fall, and it descended in a steady down-pour 
all the way. My partner and I crawled between 
our blankets in the body of the wagon. There 
we lay perfectly comfortable and in the highest 
spirits. Ahcunazie whipped up his horses and 
the mud flew. My face and my luxuriant beard 
were completely covered with mud when we ar- 
rived, and my partner could not look at me with- 
out a shout of laughter, much to my annoyance. 



222 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

It was strange to see fences and grain-fields 
again. Ahcunazie landed us at the store of the 
French outfit; the company establishment is as 
I have described, across the river. We had not 
seen much of Kenneth Birley, the trader here, 
before starting, but we ventured on the traveler's 
privilege in the North to rout him out of bed 
and demand a breakfast. Wet and dirty and 
hungry as we were, the welcome we received 
warmed the cockles of our hearts. And that 
breakfast! — sausages, and fried potatoes, and 
bread and butter, and savory cofifee, stands out 
as one of the notable meals of our lives. 
Birley was the first white man we had seen and 
talked to in twenty-two days. 



CHAPTER XVI 

TRAVELING IN COMPANY 

UPON leaving Fort Vermilion for the Hay- 
River trip without knowing anything of 
what lay before us, we had told the Hud- 
son's Bay men as a joke that they could expect 
us back on September eleventh, and this was the 
morning of the eleventh! We were very proud 
of this fact though it was only an accident. At 
any rate when we crossed the river everybody 
was astonished to see us, and I expect the Ex- 
plorers strutted around with chests slightly ex- 
panded. The thing that pleased us most was 
Gus Clark's quiet commendation. More than 
the others he knew what we had been up against. 
The launch was there waiting for us, though the 
company inspector himself was waiting to go 
up in her. 

The trader's wife, Mrs. Wilson, asked us to 
dinner that night, which necessitated the agon- 
izing operation of shaving. Gus Clark among 

his manifold accomplishments knew how to cut 

223 



224 ^^^^ RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

hair, and he attended to that. We had to beg 
various additions to our wardrobe from the 
good-natured clerks, for we did not possess so 
much as a coat between us. Even then the re- 
sult was hardly all that could be desired, but at 
least the worst discrepancies of our costumes 
were hidden under the table! 

The dinner-party was like a dream. The white 
table-cloth under the softly-shaded lamp, the 
flowers, the silver, and the china! — after that 
morning we could scarcely believe it was us! 
There was actually a silver pepper mill, and 
somebody in his nervousness dropped it in the 
soup. The taste of pudding and pie was strange 
and delightful to us, and the most novel and 
the pleasantest thing of all was the jolly talk 
around the table, for there were charming ladies 
present such as we had not spoken to since leav- 
ing Edmonton at the beginning of our journey. 

That night we spread our blankets in the 
loft of one of the company buildings and slept 
under a roof once more. I half awoke in the 
middle of the night, and in my daze was startled 
to observe the windows of the room looking at 
me like great pale eyes. I put out my hand in 
a panic and met the strange feel of the board 
floor all around, whereupon I violently shook 
my partner. "Wake up! Wake up!" I cried. 




Once a day we went ashore to chop wood 




*-* n li;^Ul'-kfsy 



•\ - ^ ,XMi 




All the cliildren came down to bid her God-speed 




The {Messenger at Peace River crossing 




We had a huddled lunch in the wet snow 



TRAVELING IN COMPANY 225 

" We're aground ! " He jumped up all ready- 
to help me push off. Then we woke up. 

The next day according to my partner's note- 
book we " hung around the Fort all day and en- 
oyed a good loaf." It rained almost incessantly, 
and how grateful we were for shelter! In the 
evening we were again well entertained by the 
doctor across the river. The departure of the 
launch was announced for the following morn- 
ing. 

The last thing necessary before leaving was to 
square accounts with the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany, who had financed the Hay River trip. 
I had left my letter of credit with the trader. 
The bill was a stiff one, and when I made some 
facetious remark to this effect the clerk said 
quickly: "What are you kicking about! We 
have left you enough to get home on!" He 
couldn't understand why I laughed. I mention 
this without any hard feelings. " The Great 
Traders of the Great West " are naturally not in 
business for the fun of it. 

The superior of the little convent at Fort Ver- 
milion was going up on the launch with us, and 
the entire establishment including all the school-^ 
children came down to bid her God-speed. 
Their pictures appear herewith. 

After all the good-byes were said and the little 



226 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

boat poked her nose into the current, we made 
the alarming discovery that we were thirteen on 
board, and it was the thirteenth of September. 
This may have accounted for the rain, which 
continued to fall with very little intermission for 
thirteen days more or less. We expected to be 
seven days ascending the three hundred miles in 
the little steamboat. It had taken us less than 
four to come down in the Blunderbuss, and this 
will give an idea of the strength of the current 
of the Peace. 

Of the thirteen, nine were white men, three 
natives, and one was the Mother Superior. The 
principal man aboard was of course Max Ham- 
ilton, the Hudson's Bay Inspector. He was of 
the true physical type of the North, tall, lean, 
broad, and youthful-looking. We were aston- 
ished when he told his age. He is of the seventh 
generation of his family in " the service." He is 
one of the few white men who really know the 
Crees. Not only does he know their language 
like his own, but he is able to assume their curi- 
ous oblique manner in speaking. The Crees ap- 
pear never to say anything directly. They are 
a laughter-loving race, and Hamilton knew how 
to keep them convulsed. Anything less like the 
autocratic Hudson's Bay magnate of fiction 
could not well be imagined. 



TRAVELING IN COMPANY 227 

We went ashore to camp every night; the 
natives generally had their fire and we had ours. 
It made a picturesque scene under the pine trees. 
Over the fire we listened to tales of the North. 
Most interesting were the accounts of conjuring 
and second-sight among the Indians. There is 
no doubt but that their simple and solitary way 
of living makes them peculiarly susceptible to 
telepathic influences. It is strange, too, to hear 
of the barbarous beliefs that are still current 
in our own land in this the twentieth century. 

For instance; the ideas of insanity and canni- 
balism are associated in the minds of the Crees. 
They believe that the only cure for insanity is to 
eat human flesh, and that a madman instinctively 
seeks this remedy. As they put it: "When a 
man's head turns to ice inside, only blood will 
melt it." Near Fort Vermilion not so long ago 
two sons took turns night after night with their 
guns across their knees, watching their aged 
mother while she slept. 

Another passenger was a quaint old fellow 
that we christened Natty Bumpus. He had been 
working for the company at Fort Vermilion, 
and he had saved up the great sum of ninety 
dollars. He was like a gray-headed little boy 
that had forgotten to grow up. His simplicity 
was amazing; he would swallow anything and 



228 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

retail these yarns again with a serious air. In- 
dians and bears and guns were his passion, but he 
had never discovered his land of romance though 
he was living in the middle of it. Once he had 
heard a bear growl, and he never stopped run- 
ning till he got back to the Fort. Natty Bum- 
pus wore a dashing broad-brimmed hat, a buck- 
skin shirt, a huge cartridge belt, and leather leg- 
gings. 

The Mother Superior was a handsome woman 
and a capable one. She accepted no concessions 
on account of her sex or her habit, but was al- 
ways ready to turn in and lend a hand like a man. 
Her savoir faire was remarkable. I will never 
forget the picture she made blandly knitting her 
stocking, with a red-hot poker game going on 
about six inches away. We were rather cramped, 
you understand. She divided her time between 
her devotions and knitting stockings for very 
long-legged children, but she was human too, 
and occasionally I saw her dip into a book of a 
lighter style. 

Of the others on board I need only say that we 
ended the voyage feeling that they were real 
friends of ours. They were a mighty decent 
crowd, full of unobtrusive consideration for 
each other. Of them all there was only one who 
had failed to profit by the lessons of good tern- 



TRAVELING IN COMPANY 229 

per and self-effacement that are taught in the 
North. He was one of the " haw-haw " variety 
of Englishmen that we get so much of in the 
colonies. There was another Englishman on 
board, the exact reverse, and a prime favorite. 

Of these seven rainy days one was very like 
another. We steamed from daylight to dark, 
and at night we camped on the shore. Once a 
day in addition we went ashore to cut wood. 
There was not room enough for us and all our 
belongings on the little Messenger, so we towed 
a barge alongside that afforded us a little room 
to straighten out in, when it was not raining too 
hard. Everybody grumbled at the weather ex- 
cept my partner and me, who thinking of our un- 
protected days and nights on the trail were well 
content to be where we were. The game of 
bridge was a great resource. It was only inter- 
rupted when George shooed us of¥ the table. 
We took off our hats to George. He was the 
cook, and a good one. 

There was one thing that never palled during 
the seven days, the scenery. Some day the Peace 
River will be as famous as the Rhine and Sep- 
tember will be the fashionable month to " do " 
it in. Not only were the effects supremely beau- 
tiful, but they were quite different from the cor- 
responding efforts of other rivers. The high 



230 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

rounded hills that line the shores, burned by the 
sun and drenched with rain, had taken on a 
somber tone that verged from a dark chocolate 
to black. On this striking background the deli- 
cate poplar foliage was painted with a daring 
brush. The prevailing color was the purest 
shade of yellow. Pale yellow on black! — close 
to, the effect was startling, but it receded, soft- 
ening into the distances as if successive curtains 
of gauze had been dropped between. For 
variety there were splashes of scarlet and pale 
green. Looking up from reading or playing 
cards a hundred times a day one received the 
same shock of surprise and pleasure. 

There was one moment just before sunset when 
the whole cloud of mist that hung about the hill- 
tops became the color of blood. The sun broke 
through a rift setting all the poplar trees on the 
sky-line behind us on fire as it were, and over our 
heads stretched a double rainbow as bright and 
palpable as emeralds and rubies. This was Na- 
ture's grand masterpiece of coloring for the sea- 
son. 

We arrived at Peace River Crossing on the 
morning of the eighth day amidst flurries of 
snow. This as I have mentioned is the point 
of departure from the river of the direct route 
to Edmonton. We had before us a ninety mile 



TRAVELING IN COMPANY 231 

portage to Lesser Slave Lake, then the lake, the 
Lesser Slave and the Athabasca rivers to Atha- 
basca Landing, and a final hundred miles over- 
land to town. 

The fall exodus from the North had begun, 
and obtaining transportation across the portage 
was something of a question. The road was re- 
ported to be almost impassable after the rains, 
but that is always the cry when it comes to en- 
gaging a freighter. As a matter of fact it is al- 
ways much the same. I have crossed it in the 
dryest weather. I do not suppose it is quite the 
worst road in America, but it is well down in 
the list. 

We were able to join forces with a party due 
to leave the following day, but we had to pay 
through the nose; twenty dollars for the ninety 
miles. In reality this was all for freight on our 
slender baggage, because we both footed it 
across. We were now saddled with the Blun- 
derbuss, so that we could not take up our beds 
and walk as before. 

The day we left the Crossing was election day 
throughout Canada. The poll was held in the 
store of the French outfit, a low, rambling log 
shack, outside and in, the most picturesque post 
in the North. Unfortunately the trader would 
not let us photograph it. He was ashamed of it 



232 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

and looked forward to the day when he would 
have a clap-boarded store painted yellow with a 
show-window on either side of the door. Such 
is progress! 

It would be just as well perhaps not to in- 
quire too strictly into the electioneering methods 
of the North. Informal is the kindest word to 
use; it was all between friends. Never had the 
humble natives found themselves of so much im- 
portance. They were met from afar off and es- 
corted to the store. They appeared to be per- 
fectly agreeable to whatever suggestion they re- 
ceived first. One friend of ours informed us 
gleefully that he had turned over nine votes. 
He then remembered that he was talking to a 
journalist and in the next breath he piously dis- 
claimed any interference with the progress of 
the election. 

Our driver across the portage was a breed 
called " Charlie." He drove a hard bargain, 
but once we were off he became entirely good- 
natured. The party consisted beside ourselves 
of Langdon a local capitalist, " the Captain," 
and Alfred. Poor old Natty Bumpus was to 
have come too, but he had an enormous trunk 
that Charlie refused to take, and we left him dis- 
consolately sitting on it on the river bank. We 
had the satisfaction of departing from the Cross- 



TRAVELING IN COMPANY 233 

ing before even the Hudson's Bay outfit could 
get away. 

While the wagon went on, we dined at our leis- 
ure in the " Peace Hotel." I have mentioned this 
hostelry; it had unfortunately not proved a pay- 
ing venture, and the meal we partook of was the 
last served there. Setting out afterwards, we 
climbed the nine hundred foot hill behind the 
settlement. The road was inches deep in the 
slippery prairie mud, and it must have been a 
gruelling pull on the horses. This was why 
Charlie had refused Natty Bumpus's trunk. 
Most of the freight of course comes down this 
hill. Nothing is sent out of this country but a 
few bales of fur whose value is out of all propor- 
tion to its bulk. 

The view from the top is famous throughout 
the North. From a projecting point you look 
up the river to the forks of the Big Smoky, and 
far beyond the Peace itself seems to come rolling 
up over the horizon from the nether world. 
After our mountain experiences we found the 
famous view a little tame. The photographs 
are particularly disappointing. The camera 
has ironed it all out flat. 

This height as I have explained, is not really a 
hill, but the river bank proper. From the edge 
of it the country stretches back as flat as a board. 



234 ^^W RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

The great reputation this view has acquired may 
be better understood when one imagines its effect 
on those, who after traveling four days over a 
flat country, suddenly find the world open at 
their feet. 

As we plodded along the road we met two 
pedestrians in city clothes that had suffered on 
the trails. They asked us how far it was to 
*' town." I am afraid we laughed. The way 
they were headed there weren't any more towns. 
These were two more of the misfits that so often 
stray into the North. They were walking in 
without a thing but what they stood in. They 
must have eaten with the Indians and sat up 
shivering throughout the nights. Heaven knows 
what they thought they were going to do 
throughout the Northern winter that was ap- 
proaching with long steps. 

They had the brisk, know-it-all air that they 
always have. It is fatal in the country. " God 
help them!" we said to ourselves. You can't 
tell such men anything. They are usually at- 
tracted by the rising fame of the Peace River 
country as a land where " money is to be made." 
To all such it cannot be said too strongly that 
there is no money in the North. There is plenty 
of work to be done, and there is independence 
and a competency for all workers; there is a 



^1 



TRAVELING IN COMPANY 235 

touch of romance, too, In spite of the store- 
keepers. But the country requires sterner stuff 
than these two. 

We made " Gladier's " for the night. None 
of the stopping-houses along this trail have prog- 
ressed beyond the most primitive stage. They 
put up your horses for a small consideration, 
and you shift for yourself. They provide a floor 
for you to sleep on and a fire-place, in some cases 
a stove for you to cook your food on ; that is 
all. They are all kept by natives, that is to say 
breeds. 

Not until v^e reached the stopping-house had 
w^e any real opportunity to make the acquain- 
tance of our fellow-travelers. Langdon occupied 
the center of the stage. He loved to play the great 
man, and the other two, with side glances at his 
well filled grub-box, were only too willing to 
play up to him. Of these two I will merely 
say that the Captain was a burly, grizzled, fresh- 
water seaman who was a mush of concession, and 
Alfred was a sturdy little Cockney with beefy 
cheeks and innocent china blue eyes. 

Langdon announced grandly that he had 
enough grub for ten men and we must all eat on 
him. We accepted his invitation, but at the 
same time we quietly added our own store to his, 
and under this admirable arrangement he had all 



236 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

the satisfaction of playing the host, while we 
were not hampered by any of the obligations of 
guests. Thus we lived together in perfect amity 
throughout the journey. 

Langdon was a character in his way. He 
was an incorrigible braggart, but an odd one in 
this respect, that he bragged of his catastrophies. 
Apparently everything he had undertaken in life 
had gone to smash and he was proud of it. He 
exaggerated his failures, as other men heighten 
their successes. When he built a bridge it fell 
down; when he superintended a mine it blew 
up ; when he went to sea the ship was wrecked. 
We looked for a new tale of horror at every 
meal. 

We declined to sleep on the doubtful floor at 
Gladier's, and carried our blankets outside. 
The others thought we were fools, and we 
thought they were. The night was very cold, 
the air as still and clear and crisp as it only be- 
comes in the North. We found a patch of 
clean, soft grass to lie on, we had plenty of 
blankets, and it was delightful to lie and watch 
the stars with the breath ascending from our nos- 
trils like smoke. In the morning we awoke 
tingling, while our fellow-travelers came out of 
the filthy shack shivering and groaning. This 
morning all the little sloughs were frozen from 



TRAVELING IN COMPANY 237 

shore to shore and the water In our pail was 
solid. 

As long as the ground was frozen the walking 
was much easier, but it soon began to thaw; 
meanwhile the road was growing steadily worse. 
Through the stretches of forest it was not a road 
at all properly speaking, but a morass full of 
dark water holes through which the horses 
plunged sometimes belly-deep. Generally speak- 
ing the ditches were the dryest places. The 
Captain was a good enough walker, but poor 
Alfred had a time of it. Nature had treated 
Alfred capriciously in giving him the torso of 
Hercules upon the legs of Cupid. Alfred hop- 
ped frantically from clod to clod, and always fell 
short in the mud. 

On this night we made " the old woman's 
place." Here there was a separate shack for 
travelers, so that at least we were not obliged 
to share in the domestic scenes of the natives. 
We did our cooking over a little mud fireplace 
in one corner, so narrow that the sticks had to be 
stood upright within it. The old woman's 
chickens came in to share our meal. That night 
we slept indoors, since it threatened to snow, but 
we took care to secure a double armful of hay to 
spread on the unsavory floor under our blankets. 

On the following day we started in a real 



238 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

snow-storm, the first of the season. The day was 
September twenty-third. We met the mail-man 
en route who shouted the result of the election 
as he passed. Reciprocity was defeated and 
Laurier overthrown. We also met more than 
one family of settlers struggling in. They were 
leaving themselves but a short time to make a 
home before the onset of winter in earnest. We 
had a huddled lunch beside the trail in the fall- 
ing, wet snow. 

It cleared before night, and since there was no 
stopping-house we could conveniently make, we 
camped in the open on Pea-vine Prairie, which 
is no more than a pretty meadow stretching down 
to a brook. In that brook we had our last open 
air bath of the season. It was a hurried one. 
The ground was still covered with snow. 

We built ourselves a huge fire on Pea-vine 
Prairie. It grew colder hourly, and it was so still 
that the sparks mounted straight upwards like a 
fountain of liquid fire. The smoke hung mo- 
tionless low down over the little valley, like filmy 
veils arrested in mid-air, and every star there is 
came out to shine. The others suffered greatly 
from the cold, and the Captain who indiscreetly 
moved too close to the source of heat, caught fire 
in his bed. As for us we had on heavy under- 
wear and two sweaters apiece, and we slept be- 



TRAVELING IN COMPANY 239 

tween three pairs of Hudson's Bay blankets, not 
to speak of a lighter pair. There is nothing that 
can convey such a sense of luxurious well-being 
as lying well-wrapped under a frosty sky. 

The next day broke gloriously, the first really 
fine day we had had in several weeks. Our last 
meal in company was luncheon in the freighters' 
shack at Pete Leduc's. It was a noble meal and 
it just about finished the grub-boxes. The piece 
de resistance I remember was a stew made out 
of tinned corn beef, tomatoes, corn, bacon, 
onions, besides what little odds and ends we had 
left. Such are the recollections that stick in the 
mind I 

At two o'clock we reached Heart River, a 
tributary of the lake. The sight of the flowing 
water excited the desire in our hearts to be afloat 
on our own again. When the wagon came up, 
therefore, we unloaded our stufif, and the Blun- 
derbuss was unrolled and set up once more. It 
was delightful to feel it under us again. As we 
pushed off from the shore the smart Hudson's 
Bay turnout came bowling along the road, and 
we exchanged salutes with our friend the in- 
spector. 

A short distance below where we embarked 
the river widens out into Buffalo Bay, a wide- 
spreading, shallow body of water lined with 



240 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

reeds and grasses. Just then it was dazzling 
under the afternoon sun, and it strongly brought 
to mind the sandy, marshy inlets of the Atlantic 
sea-board. The wagons had to go all the way 
around this bay, and we followed them afar 
with our eyes. We had a strong head wind to 
fight, and they beat us into the settlement by half 
an hour or so. 



CHAPTER XVII 

ON OUR OWN AGAIN 

IT used to be merely " the Settlement," but 
now it has a proper post-office name, Grou- 
ard. Five years have made a striking 
change. The hand of civilization has descended, 
and the happy old unregenerate days are gone 
forever. It was on Sunday afternoon that we 
arrived, and a respectable Sabbath hush brooded 
over the long street. Church came out, and the 
congregation walked decorously home, clad in 
the latest fashions out of the Ladies^ Home Jour- 
nal. Last of all came the spruce young parson, 
who looked at our rags and our unshaven chins 
with eyes of grave reproof. 

In the old days the French Outfit's store under 
the direction of " Smitty " and the valiant 
Maroney was the center of life. What a jolly, 
devil-may-care crowd hung out there then! As 
a store it left a good deal to be desired because 
they were generally out of everything, but you 
did not soon forget the welcome you received. 
And now! — a completely appointed emporium, 

241 



242 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

by your leave, with shelves upon shelves of every- 
thing under the sun, and a fresh young clerk with 
slick hair and a white apron to wait on you. 

All this was very discomforting to the shaggy 
Explorers. We decided that Grouard was no 
place for us, and after supping at the hotel (an- 
other innovation) we set off down Lesser Slave 
Lake in the Blunderbuss. 

There is a regular weekly steamboat service 
on Lesser Slave Lake nowadays. The boat 
leaves Grouard on Wednesdays, and all our 
friends were to follow us down on this. We 
cherished a hope that we might beat them in, 
and we almost did as the sequel will show. 

Buffalo Bay is connected with the lake proper 
by another stretch of the Heart River, three or 
four miles long. Down this we paddled in 
search of a camping-place for the night outside 
the pale of civilization. Coming out in the 
lake we headed across a wide bay to a point. 
Darkness overtook us midway, and such dark- 
ness! It was the only night I can remember 
when there was not light enough on the water 
to steer by. 

For fear of missing the point altogether we 
headed into the bay, and presently lost ourselves 
in a wilderness of reeds, that surrounded us like 
regiments of pale little skeletons who rattled 



ON OUR OWN AGAIN 243 

their tiny bones at us as we pushed through. 
When we were beginning to feel as if we must 
have traversed the whole length of the lake, we 
finally broke clear of them, and to our great sat- 
isfaction found a real sandy beach. It ran 
steeply up for ten yards or so, ending in an 
almost impenetrable little wood. It was not the 
best place in the world to make a camp, but we 
searched until we found an opening, and there 
we cosily ensconced ourselves under the low 
branches, beside a roaring fire that made a lit- 
tle glory of light in the black void. 

Lesser Slave Lake is seventy-five miles long 
and from five to fifteen miles wide. Its shores, 
except on the points, are generally marshy, and 
good landing-places are therefore far between. 
The lower end with Marten Mountain rising on 
one side and the Swan mountains on the other 
bears a strong resemblance to Lake Champlain. 
At this season the water is filled with an infini- 
tesimal green weed in such quantities that a 
drop of water splashed on the clothing leaves a 
green stain. Upon boiling the water the green 
matter disappears. The water is perfectly sweet 
and clear, however, for it supports quantities of 
whitefish, the choicest of the finny tribe. 

In the morning when we awoke the lake was 
spread before us in all its placid beauty. There 



244 N^W RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

was a gentle westerly breeze, and we made haste 
to cut a couple of poles and rig a sail out of 
the tarpaulin. We had visions of descending 
the lake in a single day and night. Raising the 
sail, however, had a fatal effect upon the wind, 
as it had had when we tried it the last time, and 
after drifting a mile, we were obliged to take it 
down and return to the paddles. The course 
for small boats is from point to point of the 
north shore to a strait half-way, known as the 
Narrows. Here you cross over to the south 
shore and continue. When the wind blows, as 
it nearly always does, a sea rolls through the 
Narrows like the billows of the Atlantic. Hence 
the place has a bad name. 

It became very hot as the day wore on, and we 
progressed down the shore with a discouraging 
slowness. The rapid streams we had been de- 
scending had spoiled us for slack water, and 
after the slender Serpent our old Blunderbuss 
was as hard to push as a washtub. Late in the 
afternoon we went ashore for dinner at the 
mouth of a creek, that we were compelled to 
identify from the map as Shaw's Creek, only 
eighteen miles from our starting-place. Eigh- 
teen goes into seventy-five four times with some- 
thing over. This was disheartening. 

While I was preparing the dinner, a serious 



ON OUR OWN AGAIN 245 

anxiety attacked me. In spite of all our experi- 
ence during three months, I had made an error 
in the commissariat. For breadstuff we had 
only five pounds of biscuit and no flour. Five 
pounds of biscuit looks a lot in the bag, but 
at our rate of consumption it was scarcely 
enough for two days. There is no one living on 
the shores of Lesser Slave Lake except a few 
wretched Indians who do not eat flour. And 
in the summer even these are generally off pitch- 
ing in the hills. 

As we were finishing dinner we were aston- 
ished to see a little cavalcade come riding briskly 
alongshore from the direction of the Settlement. 
It consisted of two priests with their cassocks 
tucked around their waists and a native servant. 
The leader of the party was a handsome, bearded 
man with a bright, benevolent eye, and him I 
accosted. His cassock had red buttons on it, 
which should have warned me of his rank, but 
I did not think of it. 

He was a jolly, friendly, courteous soul. In 
answer to my inquiry he said, excusing himself 
for his English, though it was very good Eng- 
lish, that there were Indians at Big Point, four 
miles farther down the lake, and they might 
have a little flour, though he doubted it. At 
any rate he was going to camp there for the 



246 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

night and we had better paddle down and join 
him. 

With courteous salutes, they splashed through 
the creek and on their way, and we re-embarked. 
It became dark before we got to Big Point and 
a strong breeze sprang up. The waves were 
breaking on the stones of the point, and landing 
promised to be a difficult matter in the dark. 
But our good friend hailed us cheerily from 
the shore and made a lighthouse of himself by 
striking matches to show us the way in. 

They had arrived only a few minutes before 
us. There was a little group of log shacks on 
top of the bank, but the tenants had flown, and 
we had the Point to ourselves. We camped in 
company on the grass. It threatened to rain, 
and we put our two canvases together to make 
one long shelter. 

The Indian boy had shot several ducks en 
route, and they were soon cooking in the native 
way, which is to thrust a pointed wand through 
the bird and stick it in the ground inclining 
over the fire. They made a very small, neat fire 
for cooking. One of the ducks was presented to 
us, together with a great loaf of delicious rolls, 
fresh from the convent kitchen. We had the 
greatest difficulty in getting them to accept a 
small tin of marmalade in exchange. 



ON OUR OWN. AGAIN. 247 

Later we talked by the fire. Our friend had 
been stationed at Fort Vermilion for many years, 
and that supplied a subject of conversation. The 
younger priest, who I assume had no English, 
said never a word, but sat and smiled at us agree- 
ably. He was very young; he had a face like a 
full moon surrounded by a boyish fringe of 
whisker. 

Like most of their co-religionists that we met 
in the North, these men instantly won our re- 
spect by their efficiency. They knew just what 
to do on the trail, and they did it quickly and 
without fuss. There is a serious difference of 
opinion in the country as to the results of their 
work among the Indians, but there can be none 
as to the conduct of their own lives. Novel 
and admirable it was to see our friend kneel by 
the camp-fire in his cassock and offer up his 
evening prayers. 

In the morning he must still have been worry- 
ing about the state of our commissariat, for upon 
going to the grub-box for something, I found 
that he had slyly put in half a side of delicious- 
looking bacon. This I would not accept, for 
we had meat enough, but not as good as this. 
Not until he was mounting his horse did I think 
to ask him his name. 

*' Bishop Goussard," he said. 



248 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

All unaware, we had been hob-nobbing with 
one of the great men of the North I 

This was a cool, gray day. It opened with 
a calm, but there were ominous signs of some- 
thing to do later on, and my anxiety about the 
bread was no sooner relieved than I began to 
worry about how we were going to cross the dan- 
gerous Narrows in our cockle-shell. We finally 
decided to head across while we were still some 
miles short of the narrowest place, in the hope 
that we might gain the other shore before it 
began to blow. 

It was an eight- or ten-mile cut the way we 
went, and at the Blunderbuss's slow rate, an end- 
less voyage. A whole hour's hard paddling 
made no difference in the look of the far-away 
shore; indeed it seemed to recede from us as 
we struggled to reach it. All the way over my 
anxious eye was cocked for squalls. The high 
canvas sides of the Blunderbuss offered a good 
hold to the wind, and if it did blow a gale, it 
was bound to blow us pretty much where it 
listed. However, our astonishing luck was still 
with us. It held off until just as we reached 
the other shore. Half an hour later the lake 
was roaring under the lash of an easterly 
gale. 

The low shores of Lesser Slave Lake rise up 



ONi OUR OWNi AG'AIN\ 249 

but of the water before you in a peculiar way. 
First you see a dot or two hanging suspended 
above the horizon; the dots spread, and finally 
join hands and come down to the water. We 
found that we had gone a mile or so too far and 
were within a reedy point that reached out far- 
ther and farther as we approached it. This af- 
forded us shelter from the wind and waves, but 
there was no dry land to go ashore on without 
rounding it, and off the point the surface of the 
lake was rent into white tatters. We wished to 
make the mouth of a small river that we knew 
emptied on the other side, and putting every- 
thing ship-shape aboard the Blunderbuss, we 
pushed out into the turmoil. 

It was an exciting little journey. The 
stumpy Blunderbuss reared and kicked on the 
short high waves like a spirited horse. We were 
driving right into it, and our progress was a 
matter of hard-fought inches. In the middle of 
it I happened to notice that one of the two eye- 
bolts on which the entire structure of our little 
boat depended was working through its hole. It 
would have been a very ill-chosen moment for 
our collapsible boat to collapse. While my 
partner kept her headed into the wind as best 
he could, I loosened the bolt, turned it, and 
screwed it tight, the Blunderbuss meanwhile 



250 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

bucking like a broncho with a burr under its 
saddle-cloth. 

We finally succeeded in rounding the point. 
We then had to come about in the sea and run 
for the mouth of the river. Anybody who has 
ever navigated a small boat over a bar under 
these circumstances will understand how the 
breaking waves were like herculean arms striv- 
ing to pull her broadside and roll her over. 
However, it was all over in a minute. We shot 
in as if discharged from a catapult and floated 
in quiet security under the river bank. 

Once inside we were neatly corked up until 
the wind moderated. We made ourselves a 
comfortable camp under some willow bushes, in 
lush grass that reached almost to our waists, 
and as usual when we were at a pause, we had 
a meal. We were always ready for another 
meal. All the rest of the day and all night 
the wind whistled through the willows and the 
waves roared on the bar. 

At dawn it went down somewhat, though it 
was still blowing hard, and after breakfast we 
decided to make an attempt. We got out over 
the bar with a little wetting, but no serious dam- 
age. That entire day was a long struggle 
against a head wind and a heavy sea. Never- 
theless we enjoyed bucking it, and we were sur- 



ON OUR OWN AGAIN 251 

prised at the distance we made. According to 
the map we covered about twenty-two miles, and 
we camped on a point well within sight of the 
lower end of the lake. Had we had even a de- 
cent day we would have beaten the steamboat 
hands down. As it was we saw her lights pass 
down the lake after dark. 

The next morning broke brilliantly clear. 
Presently to our high satisfaction a breeze 
sprang up from the west, and we hastened to 
contrive the sail again. I left the rigging of it 
to my partner, and I desire to say that it is en- 
tirely due to the workmanlike job he made of it 
that this story is now being written. 

In the course of this narrative I have re- 
marked several moments as the most exciting up 
to that time. This is the last time I shall say it, 
because the hour that followed for sheer excite- 
ment marked the culminating point of the jour- 
ney. We set out in the highest spirits under a 
moderate breeze. Immediately beyond our 
point the shore made away in, and as we headed 
straight across for the settlement at the foot of 
the lake, we were, so to speak, out in the middle 
as soon as we started, with the wind coming 
down a clear stretch of sixty miles or more be- 
hind us. 

When it blows on Lesser Slave Lake it blows. 



252 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

We had scarcely started when she came roaring 
down the lake, just as she had gone roaring up 
two days before, with this difference that to-day 
the sun shone brilliantly throughout. Well, 
there we were! A glance at the picture is suffi- 
cient to show the weaknesses of our clumsy rig. 
We couldn't turn back and we couldn't run for 
shelter. We couldn't take a reef, and if we had 
furled the sail altogether, she would have 
swamped in the sea. There was nothing to do 
but let her scud before it and trust in Heaven. 

I was steering with a paddle. I soon found 
I couldn't manage the sheet too, and I handed 
it over to my partner. He turned it round his 
hand and lay on his back in the bottom of the 
boat with his feet against the base of the mast 
for an additional brace. In ten minutes the 
whole surface of the lake was white and daz- 
zling in the sunshine, and the snub-nosed Blun- 
derbuss was plowing up a bow wave that rose 
higher than the gunwale amidships. The top- 
heavy sail seemed to pull her head right under. 

This was something of an ordeal for a collap- 
sible boat. The Blunderbuss was really no more 
than a kind of canvas bag, stiffened with a few 
half-hoops of ash, and we had of course neither 
center-board nor rudder. Our mast was a pop- 
lar sapling erected with a couple of nails and a 



i 



ON OUR OWN AGAIN 253 

bit of rope. How it all hung together is still a 
mystery. 

The wind came down the lake in blasts, each 
blast seemingly a little harder and longer than 
the one before. Each blast pulled her head 
round farther and farther into the yawning 
trough of the sea, and a hundred times I thought 
it was all over. Fortunately I had a clumsy 
Indian paddle, the same thickness all the way 
down. It was no use as a paddle, but it proved 
our salvation now; an ordinary paddle would 
have snapped short under the first blast. 

It is interesting to look back on the psychology 
of such moments. It was tremendously exhila- 
rating of course, and we were not worrying 
about possible consequences, although I knew 
very well that she could not stand much more. 
As each blast followed a little harder on the 
one before, I wondered quite casually whether 
my arm or the paddle would break first, or 
whether the mast would carry away; and as the 
wind pulled her farther and farther around, I 
would say to myself calmly that if the blast 
lasted one more second we would be in the 
drink. I think if the mast had carried away we 
would both have burst out laughing. Yet after 
a while when I began to realize that the wind 
was no longer increasing and that we were hold- 



254 ^^^^^ RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

ing our own with what we had, a delicious sense 
of relief stole through me, so I must have been 
frightened after all. 

Nothing did give way, and always just as the 
pursuing wave was about to leap over her quar- 
ter, the blast moderated a little, and she slowly 
answered to her helm. We came through with- 
out shipping a drop. I am not hazarding any 
guesses as to the rate of speed at which we trav- 
eled. It is enough to say that the distant shore 
rose right out of the water before us. 

As we drew near this shore another problem 
confronted us. The morning sun was shining 
directly in our eyes, and we could not see just 
where along that willow-fringed shore the river 
made in. Up and down the sand the waves 
were piling up in ugly parallel white lines. 
From the lake we could see two little houses, 
and it occurred to us as likely that one would 
be on each bank of the river, so we steered be- 
tween. 

There was an anxious moment or two as we 
came close in and there was still no sign of any 
opening. The roar of the surf was deafening. 
At the rate she was traveling, if she had struck 
anything, the Blunderbuss would simply have 
folded up like a fan. The oddest part of it is 
that we never did find the mouth of the river. 



ON OUR OWN AGAIN 255 

While we were still looking for it, the low sand 
bars flew by on either side of us and we were in 
it. We roared over the bar, dragging a wave 
after us like that turned up by a steamboat. An 
instant later we rounded a bend and floated in 
smooth water, a little dazed, a little stiff in the 
arms, and very proud of ourselves. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE LITTLE RIVER AND THE BIG RIVER 

THE settlement at the lower end of the lake 
is afflicted with the name of Saw Ridge, 
pronounced of course to rhyme with por- 
ridge. The change here was even more strik- 
ing than at Grouard. Five years ago Tom 
Lilac's two little log shacks crouched alone 
among the sand dunes. Now there are three 
modern stores, a telegraph office, and a cable 
ferry. We had a sad sense that civilization was 
getting an inexorable grip on us, and we lin- 
gered no longer than was necessary to buy grub 
and to inquire about the steamboat. We learned 
that she had lain at Saw Ridge all night, and 
our friends were only an hour or two ahead of 
us on the river. 

The Lesser Slave, or the " little " river, as it is 
known hereabouts in contradistinction to the 
Athabasca, Is a jolly little stream. Not since we 
had left the Crooked River had we enjoyed the 
same feeling of intimacy with the banks we were 

passing. For forty-odd miles from the lake it 

256 





i 

1^ 





The game of bridge was a great resource 




Along the ninety mile trail 




II 



The ferry at Saw Ridge 




Jack Slavin's outfit on Lesser Slave Lake 



THE LITTLE RIVER 257 

flows with a gentle current back and forth in 
innumerable hair-pin bends through wide- 
spreading meadows of rank grass. 

We had seen just such meadows along the 
Crooked River, and indeed they are common 
throughout the North. Though the surface is 
elevated from six to ten feet above the level 
of the stream, it has the spongy characteristics 
of wet land. The grass is said to be the true 
blue-joint; it grows with a surprising luxuriance 
and makes excellent hay. 

We went down fast enough, but such were 
the capricious excursions of the stream that 
progress in a given direction was slow indeed. 
In one spot near the lake, with a few days' dig- 
ging some years ago, they broke through to the 
next bend and saved going round half mile. 
The wind was still blowing hard, and it played 
tag with us on the river, swooping on us from a 
new quarter at every bend. Marten Mountain 
was still with us, now on our right hand, now on 
the left. I have not mentioned the exceptional 
beauty of these distant hills in the clear, bright 
air of the North. They bask in the sunlight like 
yellow and blue gardens. 

A few miles down the river we saw an oldish 
man making hay in the bordering meadow, who 
reminded me of an old friend in the country and 



258 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

wc landed to investigate. He proved to be a 
stranger, but not for long; we left him our 
friend. I say an oldish man because his hair 
W2LS w^hite, but he bubbled over w^ith the energy 
and enthusiasm of a boy. He was an incoming 
settler, and things v^ere going w^ell vs^ith him ; he 
w^as delighted w^ith the country and with life in 
general. 

He was a man of average physique^ but of 
superabundant vitality. He had a perfectly 
round head thatched with closely cropped white 
hair, a face like a rosy apple, and incessantly 
twinkling eyes. His name was Ed Chase. 

Eighteen months before he had started out 
from Dakota with his little family in a prairie 
schooner and four dollars in his pocket, all he 
possessed in the world. Before they had gone 
fifty miles they nearly perished in a May bliz- 
zard. Now, he informed us with justifiable 
ipride, they had traveled three thousand miles, 
and on the way he had earned a better team than 
he started with, besides a cow and an ample sup- 
ply of grub for the winter. Moreover he was 
making five dollars a day putting up hay for 
the company and an equal amount trapping 
muskrats on the river. 

For his winter quarters he had hired a shack 
on the river, two miles below, and he invited 



THE LITTLE RIVER 259 

us to come and meet his wife. He rode 
down with us in the Blunderbuss, entertaining 
us with his incessant talk all the way. His wife 
proved to be a handsome, dark, silent girl, who 
plainly adored him, while she affected to make 
light of his crazy enthusiasms. Chase told us 
she was writing the story of their long trip. It 
ought to make good reading. There were three 
sturdy youngsters to make future citizens of 
Canada. 

Chase was a born trapper, and trapping was 
his trade and his passion. He scorned the local 
methods in vogue and showed us how he would 
improve on them. For stretching his musk-rat 
pelts, instead of the solid forms that the Indians 
laboriously shape, he used little spring frames 
of willow that he could make by the hundred. 
The whole cabin was lined with the unfortunate 
musk-rats' little winter overcoats turned inside 
out and hung up to dry. 

Chase wanted to know all about our trip. As 
soon as he heard of the Hay River and the unex- 
plored country his enthusiasm blazed up afresh. 

" Not a white man in hundreds of miles! " he 
cried. "That's the place for us, thenl Pack 
up, my girl! We'll start to-morrow! " 

Mrs. Chase merely smiled. We felt a serious 
responsibility in starting him off on such a jour- 



26o NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

new, and we both brought up all the objections 
we could think of. The more we told him of 
the distance and the difficulties the more deter- 
mined he became. He had the solution pat for 
every problem we suggested. 

So it may be that they are destined to become 
the first settlers on the Hay River. Here's suc- 
cess to them in whatever they undertake! It is 
the right kind of timber for a new country. 

Toward the end of the afternoon we left the 
meadows behind us. The banks became steeper 
and stonier, and the woods closed in, first in scat- 
tered clumps of trees, then in a continuous 
growth. From this point on it was like the con- 
ventional pretty river of anywhere in the tem- 
perate zone, where one instinctively looks for 
picnic parties in the glades and skiffs tied to 
overhanging branches in the back-waters. But 
here there was nothing but ourselves and the 
musk-rats, those peevish, little, old gentlemen, 
who sat up under the bushes as we passed, with 
their paws folded on their fat tummies, and 
frowned and hoped that we wouldn't notice 
them. 

Though this sort of thing is to be found every- 
where, it is none the less beautiful. The light 
died away very slowly, and the brown stream 
flowed serenely between the graceful, still trees ; 



THE LITTLE RIVER 261 

the grasses dipped In the water alongshore, and 
the musk-rats as they swam back and forth made 
arrowy paths of ripples that caught the light. 
We went ashore at dark, warned by the voice of 
the first little rapid below, and camped and 
feasted in one of the glassy glades. The Blun- 
derbuss lay in deep water at the edge of the grass 
as if moored to a wharf; but the musk-rats had 
a high old time jumping in and out, until we 
pulled her out high and dry. 

The rapid we had heard proved to be nothing 
more than a riffle where the Sauteaux comes into 
the Lesser Slave. We reached Sauteaux land- 
ing at ten o'clock, where we found the little 
steamboat tied up to the bank at the end of her 
run. There are twenty-five miles of rapids be- 
low, around which the passengers are trans- 
ferred by stage to the larger boat, which runs 
on the Athabasca. We learned that our friends 
had gone on by stage that morning, so they were 
still but an hour or two In advance of us. 

The rapids followed. As usual we had been 
warned against them, but they proved to be mere 
child's play after what we had been through. 
Since the last time I descended these rapids the 
government has built many wing dams to assist 
navigation. These are breakwaters extending 
out from the shore to force the current into a 



262 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

narrow, deep channel. The water cascades 
through like a gigantic mill-race, but it is per- 
fectly simple to run them; you simply let her 
go down the channel marked out for you. 
Building these dams has had the effect of back- 
ing up the water between the rapids, and there 
were long slack stretches that made tedious pad- 
dling. The rapids could not come often enough 
to please our impatient souls. 

About three o'clock we rounded the last bend 
of the Lesser Slave, and the " Big " River lay 
before us. This is Mirror landing, the end of 
the other boat's run, and to our surprise we found 
her still tucked in a hollow of the bank. It was 
the maiden trip of a new boat, and she made a 
gay sight crowded with passengers and guests of 
the line as she was. It had an incongruous 
effect there in the midst of the undisturbed 
woods, as of a picnic party that had dropped 
from the skies. Hamilton, Langdon, Alfred, 
the Captain, and Natty Bumpus were all on 
deck. 

There were also several white girls in light 
summer dresses, with ribbons in their hair, a 
Strange and delightful sight to our unaccus- 
tomed eyes. It is needless to say, however, that 
they cast never a glance at the ragged Explorers 
in their absurd-looking tub. Which suggests 



THE LITTLE RIVER 263 

Stevenson's query: " At what point in the de- 
scent of the social scale does a lady cease to 
notice a man? " I think Stevenson said it v^as 
when he left off his waistcoat, but that was be- 
fore the days of shirt-waist men. However, we 
lacked more than waistcoats, so we couldn't 
blame the girls. 

Pausing only long enough to exchange bulle- 
tins with our friends on deck, we hastened on 
down. We had a great desire to beat them to 
the Landing, and we thought we might do it 
by floating all night, for they would have to tie 
up during the hours of darkness. Five minutes 
later we were out on the muddy bosom of the 
big river, the same turbid, hurrying Athabasca 
that we had camped beside months before under 
the shadow of Roche Miette, but greatly in- 
creased in size. 

It is a wide, shallow, swift stream full of 
shoals, and at this season of low water, showing 
wide, bare stretches of stony shores. It has the 
look of a " big " river; there are beautiful long 
vistas and noble bluffs, but it lacks the serene 
majesty of its sister, the Peace. The banks are 
much lower for one thing, and it betrays the un- 
quiet nature of a shallow stream — or a person. 
We had seventy-five miles of it to descend. At 
intervals along the banks there are stopping- 



264 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

houses for the freighters In the winter, but at 
this season not many of them are inhabited. 

We made ten miles or more before the steamer 
overtook us, and we had high hopes of beating 
it out. I had a pleasant recollection of another 
night that I had floated down this river by the 
light of the Aurora. Unfortunately a thunder- 
ous cloud came rolling up, and we were com- 
pelled to go ashore and pitch the tent for shelter. 
We ate our supper while it rained and thun- 
dred a little, but it was one of those abortive 
squalls that hang fire. The rain stopped, but 
the clouds refused to clear. After waiting a 
while, we decided to chance it, and making our 
beds in the boat, we pushed off in the current. 
My partner turned in, while I sat up to take the 
first watch. We couldn't both sleep, because 
there are rapids in the Athabasca. 

Then it began to rain in earnest. The 
Heavens were fully opened and the water de- 
scended in a still, heavy pressure of drops that 
hissed on the surface of the river like thousands 
of little serpents. It was a thorough, steady, 
patient down-pour, the kind of rain a farmer 
loves, that leaves no cranny unsoaked. I joined 
my partner under the blankets and we pulled 
our tarpaulins over us as best we could, but 
they only made matters worse, by collecting the 



THE LITTLE RIVER 265 

water and letting it through bucketfuls at a time. 
We were soon lying in a pool. Finally we both 
sat up in our soaking bed and stoically watched 
it rain. I will never forget the picture of that 
black river, with the ghostly film of hissing 
drops over its surface, and the inky shadows of 
the islands and the shores. 

Since we did not seem to be making any prog- 
ress to speak of, we decided to go ashore. It 
was too dark to pick a proper landing-place, and 
we were cast up on a steep declivity of oozy mud. 
There was no possible place to pitch the tent, so 
we sat ourselves down under a spruce tree that 
afforded a partial shelter and waited in the 
gloomy silence of perfect discomfort. There 
was nothing to say. 

By and by, in an hour maybe, it stopped rain- 
ing, and we miserably re-embarked. It turned 
cold, and sleep in our drenched condition was 
out of the question. There was nothing for it 
but to make up our minds to paddle all night, 
hardly an alluring prospect, tired as we were 
already. We wearily set to work. At this dark 
moment a bright shaft of yellow light struck 
athwart the black river, surely the welcomes! 
light that ever gladdened the eyes I 

We had reached Moose Portage, fifteen miles 
from the mouth of the little river. I knew there 



266 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

were a couple of log shacks here, but in former 
years they were only occupied by the natives in 
the winter. Even a breed shack was welcome 
at this juncture, and landing, we made our way 
up the bank. What was our astonishment to 
see through the window as we approached the 
fair hair of a white woman bending over a 
cradle. 

We received a hearty welcome. It turned out 
that the present proprietor at Moose Portage 
was a young white man, a newcomer in the coun- 
try, with his youthful wife and their two babies. 
This couple was likewise of the best stuff of 
which pioneers are made, hardy, energetic, and 
resourceful. We sat and listened to their brave 
plans for the future. There was something fine 
in the spectacle of the two youngsters hewing a 
home for their babies out of the wilderness. It 
was like the picture on the five-dollar treasury 
notes. 

They had two shacks close together. They 
had been asleep in the principal one when the 
rain started to come through, and fearing for 
the babies, they had made a hasty move to the 
other. Now that the rain had stopped they 
offered us the shack they had vacated, and pres- 
ently there we were in a bed with fresh sheets 
on it, a hot fire in the air-tight stove, and every- 



THE LITTLE RIVER 167 

thing we owned spread out to dry. After the 
hour that had just passed, it seemed too good to 
be true. 

Next morning we were on our way before our 
kind hosts were astir. We felt the usual embar- 
rassment about offering pay for our entertain- 
ment, but in this case we got around it by leav- 
ing some shells which fitted the young man's 
rifle. The day broke clear and cold. We made 
famous speed with the current, and pricked off 
our progress on the map at a highly encouraging 
rate. What I have already said of the river 
applies to this day too. We rounded innumer- 
able pine-clad points, and traversed one long 
reach after another. The glory of the autumn 
tints was fast departing, for the poplars were 
shedding their leaves. There were several so- 
called rapids en route, but some of them were 
scarcely discernible. 

In two hours we made fifteen miles; at noon 
we passed Sugar Loaf hill, only twenty-five 
miles from the Landing. We had cold lunches 
at frequent intervals en route, and we each en- 
joyed a little snooze while we floated. There is a 
large scale map of this part of the river, which 
I kept open before me and measured almost 
every paddle-stroke on it. It was interesting to 
follow our course, but it made the time pass 



268 NEW 'RIVERS OF THE WORTH 

slowly. We averaged seven miles an hour. 

We met a gang of lumbermen building a raft. 
They were out of tobacco. I was sorry for them, 
but I had none. We saw an Indian under the 
farther shore painfully toiling up-stream. We 
were glad we were going the other way. Finally 
we overtook two young fellows apparently stand- 
ing in the middle of the river. A closer investi- 
gation showed that they had a tiny raft beneath 
them. This was Saturday, and they were on 
their way down to the Landing for a " time." 
All day long they had been standing on their 
flimsy craft. They couldn't sit down for fear of 
getting their Sunday clothes wet. 

They pointed to an island a little way ahead 
and told us when we reached it we would be 
able to see the Landing. It was true; there, 
lying In a bend of the river were the white 
buildings that marked the end of the Blunder- 
buss's voyage. And it was only three o'clock, 
and we had made sixty miles since daybreak. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE LAST STAGE 

ATHABASCA LANDING is a hundred 
miles by wagon road north of Edmonton. 
This is one of the nearest points of ap- 
proach between the great river-systems of the 
Saskatchewan and the Mackenzie, consequently 
from the earliest times it has been a main por- 
tage trail of the country, and ever since Edmon- 
ton became the outpost of civilization, " the 
Landing " has been the gateway to the hinter- 
land. The routes divide here; you go down- 
stream to Lake Athabasca, the Mackenzie, and 
the Arctic, or you go up-stream to the Peace 
River country, whence we had come. 

For many years the government telegraph 
ended here, and all the fascinating stories of the 
North that occasionally broke into the news- 
papers, of Indians and the fur-trade, of strange 
crimes and the vigilance of the Mounted Police, 
were dated Athabasca Landing. " Gagnon's " 
was then the great meeting-place of the North, 
and appointments to meet here were made a 

269 



270 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

whole year In advance. The searcher for copy 
had only to tip his chair back in the row along 
the river-front of the hotel and open his ears to 
hear stranger tales of the North than ever were 
written as fiction. 

All this is much changed. For a long time 
while booms boomed to the southward, the 
Landing continued to sleep unaware. Finally 
the Northern Transportation Company started 
its steamers on the river, and the Canadian 
Northern Railway commenced to build from 
Edmonton. Now the town was just entering on 
the plate-glass-front, cement-sidewalk, moving- 
picture-show stage of progress. And every- 
where we were greeted by the familiar signs of 
"Sub-divisions," "Additions," and "Lots! 
Lots! Lots!" There is more reason for this 
here than in such towns as Edson. The Landing 
has a real excuse for being and will survive even 
the activities of the real estate speculators. 

We stopped a mile or so short of town and 
went into camp in a secluded spot under the lee 
of a saw-mill. I walked in to reconnoiter. It 
had a novel look, the haberdasher's shop, the 
cigar-stand, and the white babies in baby-car- 
riages. Town has its advantages, though; I 
never had to bake bread again, and we finally 
dropped bacon as an every-day article of diet. 



THE LAST STAGE 271 

I found that the steamboat had arrived about 
four hours before us, and most of the passengers 
were still in town, looking for a means of trans- 
port south. I met Natty Bumpus in his buck- 
skin shirt and leggings, who clung to me as to 
a fellow-stranger in this strange confusion of a 
town. There were no freighters in evidence, 
and as the next day was Sunday, there was noth- 
ing to do but wait patiently in camp. 

We spent part of Sunday exploring the vil- 
lage and the surroundings hills. Our costumes 
provoked mirth in the street-corner loiterers, 
particularly our lack of coats on a Sunday after- 
noon. Here was a significant change. North 
of the Landing men are not judged by their 
rags. One could write a chapter on the differ- 
ence in the point of view that this one fact 
suggests. 

Natty Bumpus visited us in camp and diverted 
us with his simple conversation. He described 
in detail the thrilling drama of Western life 
that he had witnessed in the " move 'em pitcher " 
show the night before. Western drama was just 
his line. It supplied what he found lacking in 
the real border-land. " Ain't it wonderful I " he 
said. " How them fellas can make it all out so 
if 'twas true!" Most of the steamboat passen- 
gers were at the show, but one lady was miss- 



272 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

ing. " I can't understand why she wasn't 
there," said Natty. " They have money." 

Natty and another man had engaged passage 
with a freighter who was to leave at six next 
morning, and it was therefore up to my partner 
and myself to rise at dawn if we wished to go 
too. It rained all night, and we got up and 
packed in the rain, and the Blunderbuss made 
her last little journey in a downpour. The 
shore in front of the town presented a wide ex- 
panse of the stickiest, slipperiest mud anybody 
ever had to wade through with packs on their 
backs. We found shelter in the " Great North- 
ern " restaurant. 

This was strictly a male establishment. You 
will find its counterpart in every large city, gen- 
erally with a dingy illuminated sign over the 
door: " Beds 15 cents." But a man's tastes 
take color from his outward habit. It seemed 
a more suitable place for us than the " North- 
land Hotel " down the street. In the office there 
were three chairs, three newspapers, and a hot 
stove. Most of the guests, therefore, were 
obliged to sit around on their personal effects 
watching like dogs under the table for one of 
the said chairs and newspapers to be vacated. 
Some of the newspapers were only three days 
old. 




They couldn't sit down for fear of getting their Sunday clothes wet 




The last stage — Our observation car 



THE LAST STAGE 273 

We breakfasted at a long oilcloth-covered 
table in the rear, amidst a decidedly interesting 
company. Opposite me sat a bearded Her- 
cules who had made a journey out of the far 
North for the sole purpose of getting a " white 
man's dawg " to bear him company throughout 
the winter. He was on his way back with her, 
a fine Airedale with an interesting family of 
three. The waiter was a tall, embittered, and 
rather elegant individual, who looked like a 
cotillon leader fallen upon evil days. The cook 
was a happy-go-lucky boy, and as always in the 
North a person to be propitiated. 

Time is nothing in the North. All morning 
we waited for our freighter. Between showers 
we looked for him, but in vain. It finally trans- 
pired that he had engaged himself to carry a 
party to the end of the railway and would be 
back for us the next day, or the day after I It 
cleared at noon, and I proposed setting out on 
foot. The roads would be bad after the rain, 
but anything was preferable to hanging around 
town. We had developed a sudden longing for 
hot baths and clean clothes and the other ameni- 
ties of civilization. 

The reports about the railway were conflict- 
ing. It was said to be completed within forty 
miles of the Landing; some said trains were run- 



274 ^^^ RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

ning and some said work was abandoned for the 
season. Keeping out only a few necessities and 
the precious films which never left us, we 
shipped our baggage in care of the Hudson's Bay 
transport and set out in search of the rails. 
Natty Bumpus came with us. He allowed that 
he was a considerable walker when he got 
started; The fourth member of the party was 
a young fellow named Monteith, a settler near 
Fort St. John, who was on his way out to spend 
the winter. 

Natty Bumpus was in trouble from the start. 
Anyone could tell by the look of him that he 
was no walker. On the long hill out of the 
Landing his wind gave out, and we paused at 
the top to breathe him. It was three when we 
started, and in order to do the twelve miles to 
Smith's stopping-house by supper-time a smart 
pace was required. It was hard going, too, 
through the slippery mud. Poor old Natty 
Bumpus fell farther and farther behind, and we 
finally lost sight of him altogether. 

At Smith's we received a disappointment. 
There wasn't anything much to eat, we were in- 
formed, and they had no blankets, and they were 
busy, and they weren't taking anybody in any 
more anyway. To us, just out of the hospitable 
wilderness, this was something of a shock. 



THE LAST STAGE 275 

There was nothing for it but to puUin our belts 
and foot it to the next place, Whitely's, ten miles 
farther. As we issued out of the gate at Smith's 
Natty Bumpus came limping along the road. 
We called to him that it was no use trying there, 
but he went on in, making believe not to hear us. 
Natty's feelings were hurt. We never saw him 
again. 

Fortunately we had bread and cheese and rai- 
sins and tea, and we supped beside a little stream. 
It was the last time that the copper kettle was 
hung over the fire, and we sat in the grass 
eschewing forks and spoons. 

It was a warm, steamy night after the rain, 
and as black as lamp-black. The trail divided 
more than once, and we were none too sure of 
the way. Monteith was our guide, and when he 
admitted that he was anxious, we were discour- 
aged. Walking at night has its charms, just the 
same. Across the open spaces, the sandy track 
stretched ahead of us like a pale ribbon. In the 
fragrant piney woods we had literally to feel 
for the trail with our feet. How cheering it was 
on issuing from such a patch of woods to be 
greeted by a welcoming yellow eye in the dis- 
tance. We fairly ran the rest of the way for 
fear they would go to bed before we got there. 

But these were Christian people; they did not 



276 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

go to bed at nine o'clock. Monteith was known 
to them, and his welcome was extended to us. 
Though we were desperately hungry, to avoid 
giving them trouble at that hour we said we 
had supped, and no more was said about it. 
We were waiting to be shown to our beds when 
the daughter of the house appeared from the 
next room and invited us to enter. There we 
found a feast spread. In my partner's notebook 
is this brief entry: " Out-o'-sight supper 1 Best 
since leaving Edmonton except Mrs. Wilson's." 

Next morning we learned that the railroad 
had actually been built to within sixteen miles 
of Whitely's, but no regular trains were running. 
We were told, however, that the construction 
trains occasionally took passengers in, and if we 
were lucky we might board one. Accordingly 
we turned ofif the trail at Stoney Creek, and after 
traversing a couple of fields struck the railway 
grade. After following this for a mile or so, 
we came to the end of the steel, but there was 
no construction work going on, and indeed no 
sign of life anywhere about. 

We followed the track, and after a while we 
heard the puffing of a bona-fide locomotive 
around a bend. We heard it arrive from afar 
and shunt its cars, and then there followed a 
period of painful suspense, while we waited for 



THE UAST STAGE 277 

it to start back again. We expected to arrive 
just in time to see it pull out. But luck was still 
with the Explorers. We got the train. It was 
a long string of flat cars loading sand for con- 
struction work down the line. The conductor 
said after discharging his load at St. Albert that 
he was going right into the Edmonton yards. 
This was pretty soft I He invited us to climb 
aboard the caboose. 

When I was a little boy the great desire of 
my life was to ride in the " cupalow " of a 
caboose. It was never gratified until this day. 
As I climbed up over the lockers, and sat down 
in the " Windsor " chair, which is always up in 
the lookout, the old feeling came back. This 
journey had an added advantage in that the train 
was pointed in the wrong direction, and we trav- 
eled toward Edmonton caboose first. 

It was a fearful and wonderful road-bed, and 
six miles an hour was a dangerous speed. The 
engineer of course was upwards of a quarter of 
a mile away, and they let her go blindly, trust- 
ing in Heaven. The conductor expressed sur- 
prise whenever we negotiated a curve without 
leaving the rails. There were stretches of mus- 
keg over which the long train undulated like 
old-fashioned pictures of the sea-serpent. Un- 
der the circumstances riding in the " cupalow " 



278 NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

was not without its thrills. The conductor 
mildly objected to my sitting up there, because, 
he said, when the train " broke " my head would 
go through the window. When I said I was 
willing to take the risk, he made it clear that it 
was not my head he was concerned about, but 
the glass. 

They were a queer, devil-may-care lot, the 
train crew, who traveled with their lives in their 
hands and a profane joke on their lips. Every 
one of them momentarily expected the caboose 
to capsize in the ditch with half a hundred flat 
cars piling up on top of her. They lived in a 
world of their own and spoke a strange tongue. 
We listened to dire tales of death and disaster 
on the rails. Their nerves were stretched like 
fiddle-strings, and we gathered that there had 
been a grand fracas among them at St. Albert 
the night before. The fireman was in the hos- 
pital there with his scalp laid open by a lan- 
tern. Their pay extended into the hundreds 
per month for overtime, and the engineer had 
been on duty for thirty-six hours continuously. 

As we proceeded, one brakeman hunted ducks 
from the platform. When he brought one 
down, the hunter dropped off, secured the game, 
and swung himself on the engine when it came 
up. At a crossing we saw a youth waiting with 



THE LAST STAGE 279 

a bicycle. As we approached, he held up a fin- 
ger as one signals a trolley-car. The conduc- 
tor negligently leaned out from the platform, 
and seizing the bicycle, swung it aboard. The 
youth jumped on the other end of the caboose. 
He was a pale, anxious-looking youth, who 
never opened his lips during the whole journey. 

We had supper in the " boarding-car " of a 
construction train alongside the track, and a sur- 
prisingly good supper it was. Afterwards my 
partner disappeared, to my considerable anxiety, 
but he was subsequently discovered relieving the 
over-worked fireman in the engine-cab. His 
childish ambition had been to ride on an engine, 
and so that was gratified too. At first they were 
going to have us in by nine o'clock, then eleven, 
then one, but the hours passed, and we were still 
far away. At midnight we reached Morinville, 
the terminus of the operated part of the line. 
Here the engineer struck, and all hands knocked 
off and went to the local hotel for a sleep. 

We were warned to be up at five, and I had no 
sleep at all for fear of being left. As a matter 
of fact we did not pull out until nearly nine. 
An hour later we reached St. Albert, nine miles 
from town. Here we learned that the road was 
blocked by a wreck. It was very uncertain 
when we could get through, so the pale youth 



28o NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH 

rode off on his bicycle, and we three took to 
shanks' mare once more. 

It was a long nine miles over a villainous road, 
but at last the neat little painted houses began 
to spring up thickly and the advertising signs 
multiplied. We hit a trolley line, and we actu- 
ally rode Into the center of the city on a trolley- 
car, with our bundles In our laps, sitting as quiet 
as mice, a little dazed by the multitude of people 
that surrounded us. It was an odd thought that 
these good souls had been eating three meals a 
day, and going to business, and pushing the per- 
ambulator on Sunday afternoons all the time we 
had been away. The thing that struck us hard- 
est was the hideousness of towns and the sickly 
color of townsfolk. 

We had long ago decided that the first thing 
we would do would be to walk around the prin- 
cipal streets of town ragged and dirty as we 
were, just to see how it felt to be disreputable in 
a civilized community. We tried It, and now 
we know what it is like to be utterly ignored 
by the well-dressed passers-by, like tramps or 
homeless dogs. Especially noticeable was the 
bland scorn of the fine ladles. We saw a man 
we knew, a bank mananger, dignified and dis- 
tinguished, and we were strongly tempted to 
fasten on him, one on each side, and accompany 



THE LAST STAGE 281 

him up Jasper Avenue. But we spared him. 
Then washing, shaving, and arraying our- 
selves, we began to pick up the complicated 
threads of a life of respectability — how compli- 
cated it is you cannot realize until you have been 
a care-free savage for months at a time. 
Straightaway the other life became slightly un- 
real like a dream in the morning. But this 
dream will never fade while we live. 



THE END 



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